A much-celebrated auto-fictional feminist memoir, finally available in English.

In this frank and unforgettable book, celebrated Québécois writer Alexie Morin becomes the subject of her own story as she places a childhood friendship under a microscope. An autobiographical novel set in a small industrial town in Quebec during the 1990s, Open Your Heart recounts the story of a difficult friendship between two girls brought together by illness and operations suffered at a young age. One girl suffers from severe strabismus, while the other was born blue. The first, defiant, feels that something is wrong with her, while the second is an angelic child loved by all. One becomes a writer, and the other dies at eighteen, during an operation that should have saved her life.

In this debut novel, Morin stakes out an exceptional pursuit for truth in these old memories as she grapples with death, love, bonding and solitude.

Alexie Morin is the author of a book of poems, Chien de fusil, a novella, Royauté and the novel Ouvrir son cœur, which won the 2019 Prix des libraires du Québec. Born in Québec's Eastern Townships, Morin is an editor for the publishing house Le Quartanier and lives in Montréal.

Alexie Morin's profile page

Newfoundland-native Aimee Wall is a writer and translator. Her essays, short fiction, and criticism have appeared in numerous publications, including Maisonneuve, Matrix Magazine, the Montreal Review of Books, and Lemon Hound. Wall's translations include Vickie Gendreau’s novels Testament (2016), and Drama Queens (2019), and Sports and Pastimes by Jean-Philippe Baril Guérard (2017). She lives in Montreal. We, Jane is her first novel.

Aimee Wall's profile page