Special program with the Ukrainian writer Andrei Kurkov who bears witness to the war in his country. And in this Week of the French Language in the world, meeting with the Quebec writer Paul Serge Forest, whose first novel entitled “Everything is Ori”awarded the Robert-Cliche Prize and crowned with the Prize for Excellence for Francophone Writers of America in 2021, has just been published, in France, by Éditions des Equateurs.
Exceptional testimony from the Ukrainian writer Andrei Kurkov, contacted by telephone, who recounts the situation in his country, and whose new novel translated into French today seems prophetic of this conflict.
“Like John Irving, Paul Serge Forest signs a romantic, metaphysical and social fresco in the heart of the Lelarge clan, on Quebec’s North Shore. A first novel in the form of a family saga, admirably mastered and singular.
In Baie Trinité, on the North Shore of Quebec, the Lelarge family owns a very prosperous seafood factory, which makes them proud, their fortune and ensures the economy of almost all of the small village. On the death of Rogatien, the head of the family and the company, Robert, his eldest, took over the reins, determined to make their business flourish beyond the borders. Japan precisely covets their abundant production to replace its supplies irradiated by the nuclear disaster of Fukushima. Sniffing the manna, Robert concludes a colossal contract with the Conglomerate of the colors, colors pigments, molluscs and crustaceans of Isumi.
Then comes Mori Ishikawa, a mysterious Japanese sent by the Conglomerate to oversee production, disturbing the apparent tranquility of the town with its ecosystem already weakened by the expansion of the factory.
Very quickly, the strange character sets the heart of Laurie, Robert’s melancholy and rebellious youngest daughter, in full search of herself and her place in this narrow universe. As Laurie’s irrepressible attraction to the young man grows, a wave of bizarre events occur around the village. She discovers the “Ori”, a new color and indescribable toxin of which Mori holds the secret, and does not take long to understand the danger which lurks around this enigmatic boy. This luminous toxin is about to change the course of the history of Baie-Trinité, and far beyond…” (Presentation of Ecuador editions)