Remarkable images, thoughts, and memories come together, fusing autobiography, sensory fiction, and poetic prose in this beautiful novel by acclaimed Québécoise poet, Hélène Dorion. Memory and imagination are the settings for Days of Sand, where Dorion interweaves place, time, and existence into a present made whole by her deft use of language; this is a novel in which the permanent immediacy of all times and places ¾ of existence itself ¾ is illuminated. Touching on her time in hospital as a child, vacations spent along the St. Lawrence and the coast of Maine, family stories and histories, Dorion takes the reader into her intimately recorded emotions and carefully observed daily existence, in which the quotidian detail is illuminated by the poet's perception, memory, and language. An intimate study of the power of words and language, body and self, Days of Sand is a meditation that resonates with the stories of a life not merely lived, but experienced in a child's growing awareness of the greater world.

HÉLÈNE DORION is the author of more than thirty books, including works of poetry, fiction, nonfiction. She has won many awards, including a Governor General’s Literary Award. She is a recipient of the prestigious le prix Athanase-David, awarded by the Quebec government for her body of work and contribution to Quebec literature. A multidisciplinary artist, Dorion regularly exhibits her photographs and presents literary concerts with renowned orchestras. Her poetry collection, Mes forêts, is the first work by a living woman and a Quebecer to be added to the curriculum for France’s baccalauréat. Born in Quebec City, Dorion divides her time between Orford and Montreal.

Hélène Dorion's profile page

JONATHAN KAPLANSKY won a French Voices Award to translate Nobel Prize winning author Annie Ernaux’s La vie extérieure (Things Seen). His translation of Frank Borzage: The Life and Films of a Hollywood Romantic by Hervé Dumont was a finalist for the Wall Award from the Theatre Library Association. Recent translations include Jonathan Bécotte’s Like a Hurricane, Hélène Rioux’s The End of the World is Elsewhere, and the libretto of an opera by Hélène Dorion and Marie-Claire Blais entitled Yourcenar: An Island of Passions. He has also translated Dorion’s Days of Sand. Born in Saint John, New Brunswick, Kaplansky now lives in Montreal.

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