A Season In The Life Of Emmanuel

Widely considered by critics and readers alike to be her masterpiece, Marie-Claire Blais’ fourth novel, A Season in the Life of Emmanuel – first published in 1965 – continues to shock, amaze, and move readers all over the world. The story revolves around a newborn infant, Emmanuel (the sixteenth in this French-Canadian family) and his brothers and sisters as they attempt to survive the hardships and cruelties of their social condition and their landscape with dark humour, stubborn dignity, and passionate imagination. This is an absolutely gripping narrative from one of Canada’s, and the world’s, greatest living writers of fiction. A Season in the Life of Emmanuel, winner of the Prix France-Canada and the Prix Médici, should be a staple on every literature lover’s bookshelf, as well as on every twentieth-century or Canadian literature course.

Drawings by Mary Meigs
Translated by Derek Coltman
Introduction by Priscila Uppal