Naomi Fontaine
Naomi Fontaine (Quebec City, QC) is a young Innu woman from the community of Uashat, near Sept-Îles, Quebec. She studied to be a high-school French teacher at Université Laval in Quebec City. Her first collection of poetic stories, Kuessipan, was published in French in March 2011 and in English in 2013 (translation by David Homel). The Quebec booksellers’ magazine Le libraire named Fontaine “Discovery of the Year,” and she was part of Elle Québec’s Women of the Year in 2011. She currently writes a blog, Innushkuess.
Books (1)
Synopsis:
In Naomi Fontaine’s Governor General’s Literary Award finalist, a young teacher’s return to her remote Innu community transforms the lives of her students, reminding us of the importance of hope in the face of despair.
After fifteen years of exile, Yammie, a young Innu woman, has come back to her home in Uashat, on Quebec’s North Shore. She has returned to teach at the local school but finds a community stalked by despair. Yammie will do anything to help her students. When she accepts a position directing the end-of-year play, she sees an opportunity for the youth to take charge of themselves.
In writing both spare and polyphonic, Naomi Fontaine honestly portrays a year of Yammie’s teaching and of the lives of her students, dislocated, embattled, and ultimately, possibly, triumphant.
Reviews
“A story of lived experience in which serene language and sensitively drawn images come together in short chapters like a succession of small touches of paint on a canvas.” — Le Devoir
“Here is a novel of courage, of surpassing oneself, and of resilience. This is a profoundly moving, human, beautiful book.” — ICI-Radio Canada
“Naomi Fontaine leads us to discover students who are sometimes endearing and sometimes disturbing, but always does so with poetry.” — Chatelaine.
Additional Information
5.25" x 8.00" | Paperback | Translated by Luise Von Flotow
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