Seven interconnected stories orbit a central novella to create a collection of tales which resonate with the sound of women’s voices.
A widower struggles to erase his wife’s voice from his answering machine. Two old friends meet after a period apart and find they can no longer fit into their habitual rhythm. A woman records herself reading a poem for two sisters who obsessively collect voice recordings.
At the heart of Canoes is “Mustang”, in which a woman moves with her family to the suburbs of Denver, where her partner takes up a research post. As her husband and child fit seamlessly into their new lives, she remains aloof, consumed by a feeling of not belonging, and observing as her loved ones change and adapt to these alien surroundings.
In this moving and deeply poetic collection, Maylis de Kerangal casts light on the balance between life and death, exploring the traces we leave upon each other’s lives and creating space for women of all ages to be heard.
Translated from the French by Jessica Moore
A widower struggles to erase his wife’s voice from his answering machine. Two old friends meet after a period apart and find they can no longer fit into their habitual rhythm. A woman records herself reading a poem for two sisters who obsessively collect voice recordings.
At the heart of Canoes is “Mustang”, in which a woman moves with her family to the suburbs of Denver, where her partner takes up a research post. As her husband and child fit seamlessly into their new lives, she remains aloof, consumed by a feeling of not belonging, and observing as her loved ones change and adapt to these alien surroundings.
In this moving and deeply poetic collection, Maylis de Kerangal casts light on the balance between life and death, exploring the traces we leave upon each other’s lives and creating space for women of all ages to be heard.
Translated from the French by Jessica Moore
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Reviews
When a new book by de Kerangal translated by Jessica Moore land son the mat during Women in Translation Month, it's clear that somewhere up above the thick blanket of summer cloud the stars are aligning
The beauty of Kerangal's poetic, multi-layered stories, full of sensory detail and expertly translated by Jessica Moore, lies in their emotional resonance. Anyone dealing with change cannot fail to be moved
De Kerangal's work is the translation of voice into the material for text. [...] And translation, in one form or another, is central to Canoes: translation from one country to another, from old pasts to new presents. Then there is the matter of translation and its consequence - transformation - as the task of the writer
De Kerangal is a wonderfully attentive writer with an ear for the most apposite word (a challenge elegantly met by Jessica Moore, who translated the book from the French) as this pitch-perfect collection reveals