The Postman's Round

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Width:  5.5  Inches
Height:  8.5  Inches
Pages:  120
Format:  Paperback
Publication Date:  Spring 2008
Publisher:  Dundurn Press

Description

This short, astonishing novel conjures up the solitary daily life of Bilodo, a postman who shares his Montreal apartment with his goldfish, Bill. As a result of his indiscretion (the steaming open of personal correspondence), Bilodo becomes involved in an exchange of haiku between the woman of his dreams, a Guadeloupean beauty, and Gaston Grandpre, an eccentric intellectual whose mail Bilodo delivers. Around these events, Denis theriault weaves a passionate tragicomic love story full of twists and turns, but also rich in dazzling descriptions of lush, tropical landscapes and subtle evocations of the sober, precise art of the haiku. All this takes place against the prosaic background of a life deeply rooted in an unvarying routine. Suzanne Giguere, reviewing the novel in Le Devoir, wrote: "Le facteur emotif is a captivating philosophical tale in which everything happens in slow motion, as in a dream. Endowed with a powerful imagination, Denis Theriault proves to be a fabulous storyteller.

Author

Denis Theriault's first novel, L'iguane (The Iguana), was published to great critical acclaim and won three major literary prizes: the Prix Anne Hebert 2002, the Prix France-Quebec/Jean Hamelin 2001, and the Prix Odyssee 2002 for best first novel. His second novel, Le facteur emotif (The Postman's Round) won the Japan-Canada Literary Award in 2006. Born on the north shore of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, near Sept-Iles, Quebec, Denis Theriault is an award-winning screenwriter who lives with his family in Montreal.

Liedewy Hawke's translation, Hopes and Dreams: The Diary of Henriette Dessaulles, 1874-1881, won the Canada Council Prize for Translation (now the Governor General's Literary Award for Translation) as well as the John Glassco Translation Prize. Her other translations include Memoria (Dundurn Press, 1999), House of Sighs (The Mercury Press, 2001), The Milky Way (Dundurn Press, 2002), and The Iguana (Dundurn Press, 2003), both of which were shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Translation.

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