Happy birthday Quebec! I normally offer you a quiz that allows you to test your knowledge about Quebec's History and culture. Today, I rather decided to tell you which Quebecker novels deserve to be adapted to the big screen:
#1: De Niro's Game, by Rawi Hage
It's official: this novel WILL head to the big screen. Despite the Hollywood-like ending, De Niro's Game openly talks about the Lebanese Civil War while a film like Incendies takes place in an unnamed Arabic country during what APPEARS to be the Lebanese Civil War.
Published in 1960, this magnificent novel depicts so well the cowardice of Quebec's intelligentsia during the Great Darkness, a time when the Catholic Church reigned over the province.
Although Dany Laferrière is an idiot who doesn't consider himself as a Quebecker (or a Canadian) despite living in Montreal and having his books published by a company from Montreal, the fact remains that he can write. The narrator of his novel L'énigme du retour really tries to understand why he's regarded as a foreigner in a country he used to live in (i.e. Haiti) when he "returns" there. Very philosophical, but enlightening.
Perhaps his harshest novel on our society. Somehow, it's a particular study of the excess of financial wealth.
That counts for two novels, but Hotaru is actually the sequel of Tsubame. Both novels are so short that they can be put together. I loved this novel, because it tackles a touchy issue in Japanese history: most Japanese's incapacity to accept their ethnic minorities as full-fledged Japanese.
