The stage is thus set for an On Golden Pond-style, comfortable third-age drama with a light comic edge, but Birds ends up going much deeper and darker than that as the script, driven along by beautifully nuanced performances from its central trio, leads us into some quite unexpected areas.
And the Birds Rained Down
Au cœur de la forêt ontarienne, Tom et Charlie, deux octogénaires marginaux, voient leur solitude bouleversée par l’arrivée d’une photographe et d’une fugitive.
A CBC Canada Reads 2015 Selection
Finalist for the 2013 Governor General's Literary Award for French-to-English Translation
Deep in a Northern Ontario forest live Tom and Charlie, two octogenarians determined to live out the rest of their lives on their own terms: free of all ties and responsibilities, their only connection to civilization two pot farmers who bring them whatever they can't eke out for themselves. But their solitude is disrupted by the arrival of two women. The first is a photographer searching for survivors of a series of catastrophic fires nearly a century earlier; the second is an elderly escapee from a psychiatric institution. The little hideaway in the woods will never be the same. Originally published in French, And the Birds Rained Down, the recipient of several prestigious prizes, including the Prix de Cinq Continents de la Francophonie, is a haunting meditation on aging and self-determination.
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Finalist for the 2013 Governor General's Literary Award for French-to-English Translation
Deep in a Northern Ontario forest live Tom and Charlie, two octogenarians determined to live out the rest of their lives on their own terms: free of all ties and responsibilities, their only connection to civilization two pot farmers who bring them whatever they can't eke out for themselves. But their solitude is disrupted by the arrival of two women. The first is a photographer searching for survivors of a series of catastrophic fires nearly a century earlier; the second is an elderly escapee from a psychiatric institution. The little hideaway in the woods will never be the same. Originally published in French, And the Birds Rained Down, the recipient of several prestigious prizes, including the Prix de Cinq Continents de la Francophonie, is a haunting meditation on aging and self-determination.
Jocelyne Saucier
Née en 1948 au Nouveau-Brunswick, **Jocelyne Saucier** est une romancière et journaliste québécoise, installée en Abitibi. Après des études en sciences politiques, elle se consacre à l’écriture et publie plusieurs romans salués par la critique. *Il pleuvait des oiseaux* (2011), son quatrième roman, a marqué un tournant en remportant le **Prix des cinq continents de la Francophonie**, le **Prix Ringuet** et le **Prix France-Québec**, faisant d’elle une figure majeure de la littérature francophone contemporaine.
shield_question Frequently Asked Questions
Ce roman offre une plongée rare dans la vieillesse assumée, loin des clichés, à travers des personnages attachants et une prose poétique. Il aborde avec délicatesse la quête de liberté, la mémoire des grands feux de l’Ontario et la beauté des liens humains inattendus.
Le livre explore la solitude choisie, la résilience face au temps, la transmission de l’histoire, et la possibilité d’un amour tardif. Il interroge aussi notre rapport à la nature, à la mémoire collective et à la fin de vie.
Aux amateurs de récits littéraires introspectifs, aux lecteurs sensibles aux thèmes de la marginalité et de la nature, et à ceux qui cherchent une histoire à la fois tendre et profonde sur la vieillesse et la liberté.
Vous pourrez interroger le livre sur les motivations des personnages, le contexte historique des grands feux de l’Ontario, les symboles récurrents (comme les oiseaux), ou encore les choix narratifs de l’auteure pour évoquer la fin de vie.
newsmode Revue de presse
A short and tender novel, And the Birds Rained Down is a meditation on the kinds of light that can be shined on both regional and personal histories, and on the burden of representation. Jocelyne Saucier’s use of language retains no small measure of enchantment in Rhonda Mullins’s translation.
And the Birds Rained Down weaves an alternating first-person/third-person narrative around the memory — indeed the legend — of a dead man. Ted Boychuck was a survivor of the great fires, an artist, and a man whose life weaved in and out of several others.
tag Keywords
littérature québécoise
roman contemporain
vieillesse
solitude
forêt ontarienne
grands feux de 1916
marginalité
liberté
amour tardif
mémoire collective
nature sauvage
résilience
fin de vie
jocelyne saucier
prix des cinq continents
prix ringuet
traduction littéraire
canada reads
roman poétique
écologie
transmission
photographie
fugue
communauté isolée
québec
francophonie
prix littéraire
éditions xyz
coach house books
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