Known internationally as an award-winning Québecois novelist, Marie-Claire Blais has remained hidden as a dramatist from Anglophone readers. Nigel Spencer's first-ever translation recreates Blais' disturbing yet lyrical dramas, evoking a world of "winter sleep," while in the new millennium people prepare to put on new costumes, take on new roles.

Born in 1939 in Québec, Marie-Claire Blais continues to dominate the literary landscape. Having published her first novel at the age of twenty, she has gone on to publish twenty novels to date in France and Quebec—all of which have been translated into English—as well as five plays and several collections of poetry. All of her writings have met with international acclaim.Talon has published her American Notebooks, a fascinating autobiographical account of the intellectual flowering of a great writer.Winner of the Prix Médicis, the Prix Belgo-Canadien, the Prix France-Québec, and many others, Blais continues to devote herself to work that is proud and exacting. Most recently, she has been invited, as one of the very few foreigners allowed, to join Belgium’s Academy of French Language and Literature.

Marie-Claire Blais' profile page