Finalist for the 2020 Governor General's Literary Award for Translation

Sandrine’s father is dead, and her mother has vanished into her grief. Alone and suffering from an incurable disease, the eleven-year-old girl finds companionship in her doctor, Tiresias, who morphologically changes sex in unpredictable ways (and seemingly without anyone noticing). A transformational tale about the mysteries of identity and the power dynamics that surround it, The Neptune Room pieces together life’s terrible but tender metamorphosis, opening a door onto a universe of beauty, mourning, and renewal.

Bertrand Laverdure is an award-winning poet, novelist, literary performer, and blogger. His poetry publications include Rires (2004) and Sept et demi (2007). He has written four well-received novels, Gomme de xanthane (2006), Lectodôme (2008), J'invente la piscine (2010), Bureau universel des copyrights (2011). Lettres crues, a book of literary correspondence with Quebecois author Pierre Samson, was published in the fall of 2012. Most recently, he published a YA poetry collection, Cascadeuse (2013). Awards include the Joseph S. Stauffer Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts (1999), and the Rina-Lasnier Award for Poetry for Les forêts (2003). Les forêts was also nominated for the Emile-Nelligan Award for Poetry (2000), while Audioguide was nominated for the Grand Prix du Festival International de Poésie de Trois-Rivières (2003), and Lectodôme for the Grand Prix littéraire Archambault (2009). Find Laverdure on his blog, http://technicien-coffeur.blogspot.ca/, follow him on Twitter @lectodome, or connect with him on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/bertrand.laverdure.

Oana Avasilichioaei's previous translations include Wigrum by Quebecois writer Daniel Canty (2013), The Islands by Quebecoise poet Louise Cotnoir (2011) and Occupational Sickness by Romanian poet Nichita Stanescu (2006). In 2013, she edited a feature on Quebec French writing in translation for Aufgabe (New York). she has also played in the bounds of translation and creation in a poetic collaboration with Erín Moure, Expeditions of a Chimæra, (2009). Her most recent poetry collection is We, Beasts (2012; winner of the QWF's A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry), and her audio work can be found on Pennsound. She lives in Montreal. Learn more about Avasilichioaei at www.oanalab.com.

Bertrand Laverdure's profile page

Oana Avasilichioaei's previous translations include Universal Bureau of Copyrights by Bertrand Laverdure, Wigrum by Quebecois writer Daniel Canty (2013), The Islands by Quebecoise poet Louise Cotnoir (2011) and Occupational Sickness by Romanian poet Nichita Stanescu (2006). In 2013, she edited a feature on Quebec French writing in translation for Aufgabe (New York). she has also played in the bounds of translation and creation in a poetic collaboration with Erín Moure, Expeditions of a Chimæra, (2009). Her most recent poetry collection is We, Beasts (2012; winner of the QWF's A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry), and her audio work can be found on Pennsound. She lives in Montreal. Learn more about Avasilichioaei at www.oanalab.com.
Ingrid Pam Dick (aka Gregoire Pam Dick, Mina Pam Dick, Jake Pam Dick et al.) is the author of Metaphysical Licks (BookThug 2014) and Delinquent (Futurepoem, 2009). Her writing has appeared in BOMB, frieze, The Brooklyn Rail, Aufgabe, EOAGH, Fence, Matrix, Open Letter, Poetry Is Dead, and elsewhere, and has been featured in Postmodern Culture; it is included in the anthologies The Sonnets (ed. S. Cohen and P. Legault, Telephone, 2012) and Troubling the Line: Trans and Genderqueer Poetry and Poetics, (ed. TC Tolbert and Tim Trace Peterson, Nightboat, 2013). Her philosophical work has appeared in a collection published by the International Wittgenstein Symposium. Also an artist and translator, Dick lives in New York City, where she is currently doing work that makes out and off with Büchner, Wedekind, Walser, and Michaux.

Oana Avasilichioaei's profile page

• Short-listed, Governor General's Literary Award for Translation

"The beautiful prose elegantly carries the pain while imbuing each word with significance; it's something so rarely found today. Put this in an English Undergrad class, and you'll have students analyzing the work for months, reeling with ideas until the end of the semester." —The White Wall Review

"Wonderful writing, images that ring like a morning bell. It’s difficult to part with The Neptune Room. We want to return to it, linger in its gravity and silence. A meditative book on the great adventure of the present, being, time, the limitations of medicine, and the heroism of those accompanying the young who leave before exploring the borders of the adult world. A rare book." —Littérature du Québec

"The Neptune Room is a frenetic read, bursting with cultural, political, and philosophical references." —Montreal Review of Books