Governor General’s Literary Awards
Partie de chasse au petit gibier entre lâches au club de tir du coin
Translated by Mélissa Verreault
Éditions Québec Amérique; translation of Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club by Megan Gail Coles
“Megan Gail Coles’ novel is a true translation challenge. Unusual turns of phrase and striking images proliferate within the dense writing style. Mélissa Verreault meets the challenge brilliantly. She succeeds in reproducing the originality of the story in a clear and inventive language that is full of discovery and that creates novelty while remaining very idiomatic.”
—Peer assessment committee: Louise Ladouceur, Aurélie Laroche and Stanley Péan
Synopsis
Outside The Hazel, a snowstorm is raging; inside the restaurant, other storms are brewing. Iris must reluctantly work with her lover, the irresistible but toxic chef, and his wife, who also owns the place. And then there’s Olive, who’s dealing with recent trauma, Damian, who’s hiding his hangover as best he can, and everyone else, who’s just trying to avoid explosive friction between power outages.
In the author’s own words, Partie de chasse au petit gibier is a declaration of war against misogyny: “It might hurt a little.”
Biography
Mélissa Verreault is a novelist, short story writer, poet, literary translator, lecturer in creative writing at Université Laval, the vice-president of the Union des écrivaines et des écrivains québécois, and the mother of triplets. She has published the novels L’angoisse du poisson rouge and Les voies de la disparition, as well as a collection of short stories, Point d’équilibre (named Work of the Year by the CALQ). She has also translated numerous novels, including The Break (Katherena Vermette) and Liminal (Jordan Tannahill), and a collection of poetry, Alto mare (Samantha Barendson). After living in Montréal and Italy, Mélissa Verreault has settled in Lévis, Quebec, with her family.
Photo: Hélène Bouffard
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