Description
On a Spanish-scented island, a languorous tango unfolds. People come and go, fortunes rise and fall like waves of the sea, men and women change partners — but the dance goes on. Although peopled with a colourful cast of characters, to one solitary observer this island paradise is a place where old elephants come to die. Hélène Rioux tells the exuberant tales of an ex-pat community. The elephant, used as a metaphor, becomes a portal to better understand human nature as the desires, degeneration and despair of the island’s residents are revealed in sometimes disturbing stories of irony and pathos. With an eye for detail and emotional nuance, Hélène Rioux brings a compassionate detachment to these tales of love, loss, cruelty and art as she writes of the memorable characters encountered in the Elephants’ Graveyard.
About the authors
Hélène Rioux has published poetry, news articles, short stories, translations, and seven novels. She received the Prix France-Québec and the Prix ringuet de l’Académie des Lettres du Québec in 2008 forMercredi soir au Bout du monde (translated as Wednesday Night at the End of the World), the Grand Prix littéraire du Journal de Montréal, and the Prix de la Société des Ecrivains canadiens for Chambre avec baignoire in 1992. She has been a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award five times. Her novels have been translated into English, Spanish, and Bulgarian. She has translated books into French by Elizabeth Hay, Yann Martel, Jeffrey Moore and Johanna Skibsrud. She lives in Montreal, Quebec.
Jonathan Kaplansky has translated several titles by Hélène Rioux, as well as several children’s titles and adult titles. His published translations, besides those by Rioux, include work by Annie Ernaux, Hélène Dorion and Serge Patrice Thibodeau. He also translated an extensive biography on filmmaker Frank Borzage. Jonathan Kaplansky studied at Tufts University and Université de Paris III, receiving an MA in French Language and Literature from McGill and an MA in Translation from the University of Ottawa. Originally from Saint John, New Brunswick, he currently lives in Montreal.
Other titles by
Other titles by
Like a Hurricane
Ethnopsychiatry
The Cry of Vertières
Liberation, Memory, and the Beginning of Haiti
Parentheses
Too Much Light for Samuel Gaska
Fugitives
The Girl Before, the Girl After
Canadian Adventurers and Explorers Bundle
David Thompson / Vilhjalmur Stefansson / Samuel de Champlain / John Franklin / George Simpson / Phyllis Munday
Quest Biographies Bundle — Books 11–20
William Lyon Mackenzie King / René Lévesque / Samuel de Champlain / John Grierson / Lucille Teasdale / Maurice Duplessis / David Thompson / Mazo de la Roche / Susanna Moodie / Gabrielle Roy
