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 (translated by talented writer and translator Aimee Wall), inverts the elegiac, "grief memoir" form and plays with the notion of a last testament, thereby beating any would-be eulogists to the punch.
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 (translated by talented writer and translator Aimee Wall), inverts the elegiac, "grief memoir" form and plays with the notion of a last testament, thereby beating any would-be eulogists to the punch.
Détails du livre
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Éditeur
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Texte original
Oui -
Langue
Anglais -
Date de publication
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Nombre de pages
152 -
Traducteur
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Thème
À propos de l'auteur
Vickie Gendreau
Vickie Gendreau was born in Montreal in 1989. While working in Montreal 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 poesie de Trois-Rivières. 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. It was longlisted for the 2013 Prix litteraire France-Quebec, and the English edition was published by Book*hug in 2016. Her second novel, Drama Queens, was published posthumously in 2014.
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