I've just finished a short book about a novice teacher's first year in her home town's secondary school, in the Innu reserve of Uashat. She teaches French (the local population's first or second language) and the Head gets her to put on a play (Corneille's Le Cid). Many teenage mums and older pupils. Difficult family situations, deaths and suicides. Bleak and uplifiting. The usual Teacher In A Deprived Area story.
C‘est d‘abord la vue qui a participé à mon expérience, alors que tour à tour je lisais et regardais les enfants dans la cour d‘école en face, insufflant encore plus de vie aux jeunes personnages du roman. L‘ouïe aussi, alors que j‘entendais les jeunes s‘amuser, renforçant la vivacité et la candeur du récit. Le toucher également : j‘ai pu ressentir physiquement l‘avancement et le rythme du bref roman à mesure que mes mains tournaient les pages.
https://youtu.be/8Q3by8TXiKg
#InvisibleCitiesProject
#JanuaryInJapan
Intro
Channel shout-out: Lindy‘s Magpie Reads
Highlights
Kin by Miljenko Jergović, Russell Scott Valentino (Translator)
A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth
Manikanetish by Naomi Fontaine, Luise von Flotow (Translator)
To the Slaughterhouse by Jean Giono, Norman Glass (Translation)
Children of the New World by Assia Djebar, Marjolijn De Jager (Translation)
pickEven though not a book about Christmas, it fits this time of the year.
A young teacher comes back into her home town to teach the local teenagers. They're Canadian natives, and we soon learn about the truth of living in a reservation.
Even though we read about teenager pregnancies, suicides and about drop outs, it's still a book filled with love and hope. Love for the family, the children, home. Hope that the next generation might ⬇
pickYammie left her Innu reserve, Uashat, on Quebec‘s North Shore, when she was a child. She returns 15 years later as a high school teacher. This quiet yet powerful novel documents a year of her experiences, connecting with her troubled but remarkable students, who face nearly insurmountable challenges. Meanwhile, she sorts out her own feelings of belonging to the place. Translation by Luise von Flotow. #Indigenous #Canadian
Oops! Le malade imaginaire is by Molière, not Voltaire. Somehow this mistake made it into the English translation edition, so I assume it was in the original French text of Manikanetish too.
Tuesday stack: current reads plus books waiting to be reviewed. #nonmonogamous
An old, very wrinkled woman wearing the traditional Innu red-and-black felt bonnet. Not bothering to look directly at the camera. I was told later on that the missionaries were the ones who made Innu women wear the bonnets & keep their hair in braids rolled up on the sides of their heads & pinned at their temples. Because, with their long hair caressing their backs au naturel, they were beautiful. Attractive. Savage. Too beautiful for men of God👇
Very dissapointed that Manikanetish by Naomi Fontaine was eliminitated today in Le Combat national des livres. Sad.
Blaise Ndala and Karoline Georges are left and if I were a betting woman, I'd say Georges will win. She's won everything else.
Manikanetish: petite Marguerite | 
