On February 7, 2012, as students in Quebec prepared to vote to go on strike, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois gave a rousing speech: “What you do today will be remembered. The decision you make will tell future generations who we were. And you already know what is being said today about our generation. That we are the generation of comfort and indifference, the generation of cash and iPods; that we are individualists, egotists; that we don’t care about anything, except our navels and our gadgets. Aren’t you tired of hearing this? Well, I am. Luckily, today we have a chance to prove that it’s not true, that it has never been true.”

The “Maple Spring” saw more than 300,000 students across Quebec protest a tuition fee hike by striking from their classes. Nadeau-Dubois takes readers step-by-step through the strike, recounting the confrontations with journalists, ministers, judges, and police. Along the way he exposes the moral and intellectual poverty of the Quebec elite and celebrates the remarkable energy of the students who opposed the mercenary attitude of the austerity agenda.

In Defiance is translated from the 2014 Governor General’s Literary Award winner for non-fiction, Tenir tête (Lux Éditeur)

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the National Translation Program for Book Publishing, an initiative of the Roadmap for Canada’s Official Languages 2013-2018: Education, Immigration, Communities, for our translation activities.

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois was the lead spokesperson for CLASSE, one of the more vocal student bodies that participated in the 2012 student strikes that swept Quebec. He is currently working on a Masters in Sociology and is a regular panelist on Radio-Canada.

Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois' profile page

Lazer Lederhendler is a full-time freelance translator specializing in contemporary Québécois fiction and nonfiction. His work has earned him many distinctions in Canada and abroad, including multiple nominations for the Governor General’s Literary Award, which he won in 2008 for the translation of Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner. He is also the translator of Gaétan Soucy’s novel, The Immaculate Conception, which was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award for French to English translation, and the winner of the Cole Foundation Prize for Translation awarded by the Quebec Writers’ Federation. Lazer Lederhendler lives in Montreal. 

Lazer Lederhendler's profile page

[In Defiance offers] thorough and intelligent insights about the Maple Spring, and why it was more than just a fight between students and Jean Charest’s government over proposed fee hikes to universities.

<p><em>Quill & Quire</em></p>

I want you to read this book. I read it twice: first in French when it first came out, and then again this past week in English. I enjoyed it both times.

Montreal Serai