Poetry
Les Îles de la nuit
Not translated into English
Alain Grandbois · 1944
Synopsis
Nearly thirty poems in free verse, untitled, identified by their first line; several had appeared in 1934 in a pamphlet printed in China. Night, the sea and the islands serve there as a refuge for a solitary man, who describes himself as “like a desire frozen among the islands of the night”. He calls out to the woman he loves, feels the anguish of the night and of solitude, and constantly comes up against time and death.
Context
The collection appeared in Montreal from Lucien Parizeau, printing completed on 9 May 1944, with five drawings by Alfred Pellan. Ten years earlier, its author had had a booklet of about one hundred and fifty copies printed in China, lost in the sinking of a junk; one copy sent to Canada survived. The reception in 1944 was divided. The book ranks among the first free-verse collections in Quebec, and its voice later inspired the generation of the Hexagone.
Who it is for
A collection of about one hundred and thirty pages, with no difficulty of vocabulary, but with a long sentence that unfolds from verse to verse.
Prizes and reception
Second David Prize awarded to its author; the Canadian Encyclopedia regards him as the first great modern poet of Quebec.
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