We live in a world of sensations and cursory thought, of appearances, clichés and empty gestures designed to make everything seem lighter, including love, suffering, and even death. What hopes and true desires can remain through the sequence of fleeting images and scenes that make up our existence? The twenty stories gathered here portray an eminently contemporary world of meetings, travel, work, and intimacy, both sweet and intense, a world that reveals and conceals the fundamental issues of life. Written in language that is both subtle and nuanced, in a tone that balances irony and compassion, the stories are notable for their apt observation, lively dialogue and complete trust in the reader’s intelligence and sensitivity. In Fugitives, Lise Gauvin is revealed as a brilliant and original short story writer. Jonathan Kaplansky’s translation of her work is both faithful and lyrical.

Lise Gauvin'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.

Jonathan Kaplansky's profile page