Anne Hébert, Les Fous de Bassan [In the Shadow of the Wind]

Marie Pascal

Ed. by Emir Delic, Université Sainte-Anne
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.4: Canadian Writing and Culture: Francophone .
Vol. editors: Emir Delic (Université Sainte-Anne), Eftihia Mihelakis (Brandon University), Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1982

Places

Canada (Country of Origin)
France (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

For her fifth novel, Les Fous de Bassan (published in 1982; translated in 1983 by Sheila Fischman under the title In the Shadow of the Wind), Anne Hébert wins the Fémina prize, making the book an academic and popular success. “If the storyline mainly revolves around the fury of murder, the events seem less determined by the characters’ logic than by an underlying curse, emanating from the place itself” (Biron et al., 2007: 317). The pattern of murder indeed reveals itself more unpredictable than in the previous novel, Kamouraska (1970), where a woman drives her lover to kill an incestuous and dangerous husband. To quote the authors of Histoire de la litté…

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4755 words

Citation: Pascal, Marie. "Les Fous de Bassan". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 August 2017 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35853, accessed 22 November 2024.]

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