Gabrielle Roy

Christine lives in a small windswept prairie city where time moves slowly. One morning, at the height of a hot, dry summer, she befriends an old man who lives just a few streets over. As their unlikely friendship grows, they hatch a plan to visit Lake Winnipeg--a vast inland ocean the old man longs to see again and the young girl can only imagine. A QR code printed in the book gives access to a recording online of the narrated story.

Issy, Nate, Shay and Gabriela find an old factory behind their school. But when Gabriela gets captured by Spidey, the evil lady who lives there, the others must form a team to save her. Will they prevail? Or will they be caught and tortured like everyone else?

Gabrielle Roy was one of the most prominent Canadian authors of the twentieth century. Joyce Marshall, an excellent writer herself, was one of Roy's English translators. The two shared a deep and long-lasting friendship based on a shared interest in language and writing. In Translation offers a critical examination of the more than two hundred letters exchanged by Roy and Marshall between 1959 and 1980. In their letters, Roy and Marshall exchange news about their general health and well-being, their friends and family, their surroundings, their travels, and other writers, as well as their dealings with critics, editors, and publishers. They recount comical incidents and strange encounters in their lives, and reflect on human nature, current events, and, from time to time, their writing. Of particular interest to the two women were the problems they encountered during the translation process. Many passages in the letters concern the ways in which the nuances of language can be shaped through translation. Editor Jane Everett has arranged the letters here in chronological order and has added critical notes to fill in the historical and literary gaps, as well as to identify various editorial problems. Shedding light on the process of writing and translating, In Translation is an invaluable addition to the study of Canadian writing and to the literature on these two important figures.

The books of Margaret Laurence and Gabrielle Roy are among the most beloved in Canadian literature. In 1976, when both were at the height of their careers, they began a seven-year written correspondence. Laurence had just published her widely acclaimed The Diviners, for which she won her second Governor-General's Award, and Roy had returned to the centre of the literary stage with a series of books that many critics now consider her richest and most mature works. Although both women had been born and raised in Manitoba - Laurence in Neepawa and Roy in St. Boniface - they met only once, in 1978 at a conference in Calgary. As these letters reveal, their prairie background created a common understanding of place and culture that bridged the differences of age and language. Here Laurence and Roy discuss everything from their own and each other's writing, to Canadian politics, housekeeping, publishing, and their love of nature. With a thoughtful introduction by Paul G. Socken, these lovely and intimate letters record the moving, affectionate friendship between two remarkable women.

First published in French in 1966, The Road Past Altamont pierces to the heart of a child's world, craeting a delicate, yet substantial network of impressions, emotions, and relationships. In her writing, Gabrielle Roy allowed "nothing extraneous or false to stand," according to the translator, Joyce Marshall. The literary style of Roy, whose fiction reflects her childhood on the Canadian prairie, has often been compared to that of Willa Cather. The Road Past Altamont takes a sensitive French-Canadian girl, Christine, from childhood innocence to maturity. Four connected stories reveal profound moments during her early years in the vastness of Manitoba. Christine's testament to Grandmother's creative power, her great adventure with an old gentleman at Lake Winnipeg and her clandestine one with a crude family of movers, her journey through time and space with aging Maman-all these characters and events convey Gabrielle Roy's preoccupation with childhood and old age, the passage of time and mystery of change, and the artist's relation to the world.