Testament - Vickie Gendreau

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Résumé :
Fiction. Translated by Aimee Wall. On June 6, 2012, Vickie Gendreau was diagnosed with a brain tumour. In between treatments, between hospital stays and her room of her own, she wrote TESTAMENT, an autofictional novel in which she imagines her death and at the same time, bequeaths to her friends and family both the fragmented story of her last year and the stories of the loved ones who keep her memory alive, in language as raw and flamboyant as she was.

In the teasing and passionate voice of a twenty-three-year-old writer, inspired as much by literature as by YouTube and underground music, Gendreau's sense of image, her relentless self-deprecation, and the true emotion in every sentence add up to an uncompromising work that reflects the life of a young woman who lived without inhibitions, for whom literature meant everything right up until the end.

In this way, TESTAMENT inverts the elegiac, grief memoir form and plays with the notion of a last testament, thereby beating any would-be eulogists to the punch.

A challenging work at the level of both form and style, the fragmented, polyphonic nature of the text and its occasionally dense or opaque prose contribute to this novel's incredibly unique voice and style. With its unexpectedly raw and open and somehow still occasionally funny perspectives on illness, dying, and death, this book will appeal to lovers of memoir, autofictional narrative, and readers who appreciate a palpable tension between fact and fiction.

Translator Bio:

Newfoundland-native Aimee Wall is a writer and translator. Her essays, short fiction, criticism, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including Maisonneuve, Matrix Magazine, the Montreal Review of Books, and Lemon Hound. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Translation Studies

Biographie:

VICKIE GENDREAU was born in Montr?al in 1989. While working in Montr?al strip clubs from October 2009 to June 2012, she was also active in the literary community, where she participated in events like the Off-Festival de po?sie de Trois-Rivi?res. She was diagnosed with a brain tumour in 2012, and passed away a year later. Her first novel, Testament, written after her diagnosis, was published in the fall of 2012 and longlisted for the 2013 Prix litt?raire France-Qu?bec. Her second novel, Drama Queens, was published in 2014. The English adaptation of Testament, translated by Aimee Wall, was published by Book*hug Press in the fall of 2016.

AIMEE WALL is a writer and translator. Wall's translations include Sadie X by Clara Dupuis-Morency, Vickie Gendreau's novels Testament and Drama Queens, and Sports and Pastimes by Jean-Philippe Baril Gu?rard. Her acclaimed debut novel, We, Jane was nominated for nine literary prizes including the Amazon Canada First Novel Award, the BMO Winterset Award, the ReLit Award for Fiction, and the Scotiabank Giller Prize longlist. Wall was born in Newfoundland and lives in Montreal.