Kukum by Michel Jean
2025 Longlist

Kukum

Translated from the French
artwork-image

ABOUT
THE BOOK

Kukum recounts the story of Almanda Siméon, an orphan raised by her aunt and uncle, who falls in love with a young Innu man despite their cultural differences and goes on to share her life with the Pekuakami Innu community. Unfolding over the course of a century, the novel details the end of traditional ways of life for the Innu, as Almanda and her family face the loss of their land and confinement to reserves, and the enduring violence of residential schools.

ABOUT
THE AUTHOR Michel
Jean

Michel Jean is an award-winning writer, news anchor and investigative journalist, much appreciated by the Quebec public. After graduating, he worked at Radio-Canada and, since 2005, at TVA. He has written twelve books with sales of nearly 475,000 copies in Quebec. In addition to participating in several collectives, he has edited two short story collections featuring Indigenous voices: Amun, released in fall 2016, and Wapke, published in May 2021, both of which have been sold in English (Exile Editions) and German (Wieser Verlag).

Michel Jean is an award-winning writer, news anchor and investigative journalist, much appreciated by the Quebec public. After graduating, he worked at Radio-Canada and, since 2005, at TVA. He has written twelve books with sales of nearly 475,000 copies in Quebec. In addition to participating in several collectives, he has edited two short story collections featuring Indigenous voices: Amun, released in fall 2016, and Wapke, published in May 2021, both of which have been sold in English (Exile Editions) and German (Wieser Verlag).

ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Susan
Ouriou

SUSAN OURIOU is an award-winning fiction writer and literary translator with over sixty translations and co-translations of fiction, non-fiction, children’s and young-adult literature to her credit. She has won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation. Jane, the Fox and Me, co-translated with Christelle Morelli, was named to IBBY’s Honour List. She has also published Nathan, a novel for young readers. Susan lives in Calgary, Alberta.

SUSAN OURIOU is an award-winning fiction writer and literary translator with over sixty translations and co-translations of fiction, non-fiction, children’s and young-adult literature to her credit. She has won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation. Jane, the Fox and Me, co-translated with Christelle Morelli, was named to IBBY’s Honour List. She has also published Nathan, a novel for young readers. Susan lives in Calgary, Alberta.

NOMINATING LIBRARY COMMENTS

The quiet strength of this novel lies in the love and admiration the author so clearly feels for his great-grandmother Almanda, a woman raised on a farm by a French-speaking couple (not her parents), who chose to adopt a nomadic way of life at the age of fifteen, when she fell in love with a young Innu man, Thomas Siméon. It is at once a fictionalized biography, a love story (between Almanda and Thomas) and a portrait of Quebec’s colonial history. In this beautiful novel Michel Jean explores his own identity by illustrating traits in his ancestors that he sees in himself (his love of adventure, of stories and books) and expresses a longing for what has been lost through the fracturing of Innu culture due to forced settlement on reserves.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Date published
24/08/2023
Country
Canada
Original Language
French
Author
Publisher
House of Anansi Press
Translator
Susan Ouriou
Translation
Translated from the French
Borrow this book from Libraries Ireland

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