Twelve-year-old Souleye has just immigrated to Montreal from Senegal with his family. He wants to become “from here” as quickly as possible, but Canada and Senegal prove to be two completely different worlds, and their new lives don’t unfold as planned. Beyond the daily grind of finding an apartment, schools, and jobs, young Souleye (whose only friend renames him “Soleil” – Sun) has to contend with what it means to be black in a predominantly white society, a foreigner among the locals. And that’s all before his father’s mind begins to fall apart…

Poignantly translated from the French by Claire Holden Rothman, David Bouchet’s Sun of a Distant Land is by turns charming and tragic, an epic contemporary vision of what it means to be uprooted, and what it takes to plant roots in a new land.

“A Sparkling novel.” - Danielle Laurin, Le Devoir

“Although sometimes dark, the novel bursts with tenderness and lucidity, poetry and humour.” -- Valérie Lessard, Le Droit

“The book is dazzling. Through the eyes of a young Senegalese who came to Quebec with his family we discover a world of contradictions and beauty.” –Les Libraires magazine

David Bouchet (Daouda Toubab) is an editor, writer and screenwriter. He spent most of his life in Dakar, Senegal and has lived in Montreal since 2010. Sun of a Distant Landis his first novel.

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 CLAIRE HOLDEN ROTHMAN is the author of two story collections and a bestselling novel The Heart Specialist, longlisted for the 2009 Scotiabank Giller Prize and published in six countries. Her translation of Canada’s first novel, L’influence d’un livre (The Influence of a Book) by Philippe-Ignace-François Aubert de Gaspé, won the John Glassco Translation Prize. She lives in Montreal with playwright Arthur Holden.

Claire Holden Rothman's profile page