For Sure is among other things a labyrinth, a maze, an exploration of the folly of numbers, a repository, a defense and an illustration of the Chiac language. Written in dazzling prose — which is occasionally interrupted by surprising bits of information, biography, and definitions that appear on the page — Daigle perfectly captures the essence of a place and offers us a reflection on minority cultures and their obsession with language.

It is also the continuing story of Terry and Carmen, familiar to us from previous works, their children Etienne and Marianne, and all those who gravitate around the Babar, the local bar in Moncton — the Zablonskis, Zed, Pomme — artists and ordinary people who question their place in the world from a distinct point of view that is informed by their geography, and by their history, politics, and culture.

Masterfully translated from French by award-winning translator Robert Majzels, For Sure is the moving story of a family and a surprising, staggeringly original work that represents a corner of our country.

France Daigle is the author of eleven novels, including Real Life, 1953, A Fine Passage, Life’s Little Difficulties, and Just Fine, which won the France Acadie Prize, the Prix Éloize, and the Prix Antonnie-Maillet-Acadie Vie. She lives in Moncton New Brunswick.

France Daigle's profile page

Robert Majzels, author of Apikoros Sleuth and City of Forgetting (Mercury), is a Montreal-born prose writer, playwright, translator and teacher; his first novel, Hellman’s Scrapbook (Cormorant), was hailed and acclaimed. His play This Night the Kapo won first prize in the Dorothy Silver Competition and the Canadian Jewish Playwriting Competition. In 1991, his fiction was featured in Coming Attractions (Oberon); his translations include Anne Dandurand’s Small Souls Under Siege (Cormorant) and The Waiting Room (The Mercury Press), and France Daigle’s 1953 (House of Anansi). He has also translated several novels by France Daigle, short stories by Anne Dandurand and, with Erin Mouré, two books of poetry by Nicole Brossard. Robert Majzels lives in Quebec.

Robert Majzels' profile page

• Short-listed, The Governor General's Literary Awards- Translation- French to English

Daigle has written about contemporary New Brunswick like it never has been done before. Although her concerns lie in the past, the history of speech itself, she is not telling a story about our past as a metaphor for today. No, Daigle is embracing today to reveal what has happened and what may become.

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