In a small town apocalypse, the social order of things can no longer prevail against the larger forces brought to bear on its insular, traditional, incestuous community. Marcel, in a cleansing, destructive rage, sets his murderous sights on the powers that rule this world.

Scattered in a Rising Wind records this rush of events barely at the edge of syntax; a teeming imagination always just ahead of the ability to articulate; with a participatory narrator that scrambles to keep up with the unfolding perceptions within the characters that surround him. Set in a tiny claustrophobic mill town north of Sudbury, the language borrows the reader to animate its utterly amoral characters as embodiments of the most elemental of human passions. Almost devoid of the conventions of punctuation, capitalization and other grammar rules designed to control language and enforce its sequential linearity, occasionally breaking its prose margins to become minimalist utterances, the novel constantly moves into “a future that has nothing to do with the past.” Yet the past is constantly re-constructed backwards in all its recurring archetypes by the characters, their actions, even their names. Just as the narrator says of the main character, Marcel, “a lot of what he thinks he remembers is invented,” the reader is left, in the end, with Marcel’s Oedipal revenge, the incestuous passion of a Joseph for a Mary of divine birth, and the barren rose of love echoing like a shot to the head, a tattoo on the heart. There is no time here.

Playwright, novelist, poet, screenwriter and actor Jean Marc Dalpé is a three-time recipient of the Governor General’s Literary Award: for his play Le Chien in 1988, for his anthology of plays Il n’y a que l’amour in 1999, and for his debut novel Un vent se lève qui éparpille (published in English as Scattered in a Rising Wind) in 2000. Over the years, he has translated works by several contemporary authors as well as classics by Shakespeare and Bertolt Brecht. He has also written stage adaptations of such works as the last chapter of James Joyce’s novel Ulysses (Molly Bloom) and Marta Hillers’ memoir A Woman in Berlin. He recently appeared in Mansel Robinson’s play Deux (Théâtre du Nouvel-Ontario) and Gilles Poulin-Denis’s Dehors (Hôtel-Motel), and over the winter he toured western Canada with Gabriel Dumont’s Wild West Show, which he co-wrote with nine other writers (French, English, and Indigenous) and co-artistic directed. He holds two honorary doctorates for his body of work, from Laurentian University and the University of Ottawa. His latest play, La Queens’, premiered in January 2019 at Montreal’s Théâtre La Licorne, directed by Fernand Rainville.

Jean Marc Dalpé's profile page

Linda Gaboriau is a dramaturge and literary translator renowned for her translations of some 100 plays and novels by some of Quebec's most prominent writers, including many of the Quebec plays best known to English Canadian audiences. After studying French language and literature at McGill University, she freelanced as a journalist for the CBC and the Montreal Gazette. She has worked in Canadian and Québécois theatre and is founding director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre, where she directed numerous translation residencies and international exchange projects. Her third translation of a Wajdi Mouawad play Forests in 2010 won her a second Governor General's Literary Award for translation. Originally from Boston, Linda Gaboriau has been based in Montreal since 1963.
David Homel is a writer, journalist, filmmaker, and translator. He is the author of five previous novels, including The Speaking Cure, which won the J.I. Segal Award of the Jewish Public Library, and the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Best Fiction from the Quebec Writer's Federation. He has also written two children's books, including Travels with my Family, which was co-authored with his wife, Canadian children's author Marie-Louise Gay. He has translated several French works, receiving two Governor General's Literary Awards for translation. Homel was born and raised in Chicago and currently resides in Montreal.
Maureen Labonté is a dramaturge, translator and teacher. She has also coordinated a number of play-development programs in theatres and playwrights' centres across the country. In 2006, she was named head of program for the Banff playRites Colony at The Banff Centre. She was dramaturge at the Colony from 2003-2005. She was also literary manager in charge of play development at the Shaw Festival from 2002-2004. Previous to that, she worked at the National Theatre School of Canada (NTSC), first developing and running a pilot directing program and then coordinating the playwrighting program and playwrights' residency. She still teaches at NTSC. She has translated more than thirty Quebec plays into English. Recent translations include: The Bookshop by Marie-Josée Bastien, Everybody's WELLES pour tous by Patrice Dubois, Martin Labreque and The Tailor's Will by Michel Ouellette, Wigwam by Jean-Frédéric Messier and Bienvenue à (une ville dont vous êtes le touriste) by Olivier Choinière.

Linda Gaboriau's profile page