A Season in the Life of Emmanuel

A Season in the Life of Emmanuel
First US English-language edition
AuthorMarie-Claire Blais
Original titleUne saison dans la vie d'Emmanuel
TranslatorDerek Coltman
CountryCanada
LanguageFrench
PublisherGrasset (France)
Farrar, Straus and Giroux (US)
Jonathan Cape (UK)
Publication date
1965
Published in English
1966

A Season in the Life of Emmanuel (French: Une saison dans la vie d'Emmanuel) is a French Canadian novel by Marie-Claire Blais, published in 1965.[1]

The novel centres on a large rural farm family in Quebec headed by domineering matriarch Antoinette,[1] and depicts their lives around the time of the birth of Emmanuel, the family's sixteenth child.[1] The novel focuses primarily on Emmanuel's teenage siblings Pomme, Héloïse, "Septième" (Fortuné-Mathias) and Jean-Le Maigre, who are all in some state of rebellion against the family order;[2] in its themes of moral and sexual transgression, the novel is part of the anti-terroir tradition in Quebec literature.

The novel was adapted for film by director Claude Weisz in 1972.

Awards[edit]

The novel won the Prix Médicis and the Prix Jean-Hamelin in 1976.

The novel was selected for the 2008 edition of Le Combat des livres, in which it was defended by actor and director Serge Denoncourt.

References[edit]

  1. ^ a b c "Une saison dans la vie d'Emmanuel" at The Canadian Encyclopedia.
  2. ^ "Nouveau Roman Made Easy" Archived February 25, 2015, at the Wayback Machine. Canadian Literature (Volume 31), Winter 1967.