| Author(s) | |
|---|---|
| Publication Year | |
| Publisher |
"The Torrent" 1947
From: The Quebec Anthology
$2.16
The short story "Au bord du torrent" was published in October 1947 in Amerique française, and appeared in book form in 1950, when Le Torrent won the Belgian Royal Academy’s prize for the best book in French by a non-Belgian. Its theme is the death of the old régime, personified by the dark and dominating mother of the hero, François Perrault. Often called Quebec’s first modern short story, it occupies the same niche in Quebec as do the early stories of Alice Munro in English Canada. The critic Ben-Zion Shek
has noted that "Le Torrent" is written in the form of "a powerful allegory . . . in starkly tragic and violent images, pessimistically announcing that the breakdown of the old would not necessarily usher in a new, freer social climate," and it is true that Perrault does not seem to be significantly better off following his mother’s death. But after the publication of "Le Torrent," there was little doubt that the old order was gone, and that a new kind of literature was being written.
Contributors
Anne Hébert
Anne Hébert was born August 1, 1916, in Sainte-Catherine-de-Fossambault, the daughter of literary critic Maurice Hébert and the first cousin of the great Québécois poet Hector Saint-Denys-Garneau. A childhood illness prevented her from attending school, and she was educated at home by her parents. With her cousin, she began writing poetry and stories at an early age; in 1939 she began publishing in several literary journals, including Le Canada français and Amérique française. She attended Collège Notre-Dame-de-Bellevue and Mérici, and in 1942—the year before Saint-Denys-Garneau's death—she published her first book of poems, Les Songes en équilibre, which won the Prix David.
