Wintersleep

By Marie-Claire Blais

Known internationally as an award-winning QuZbecois novelist, Marie-Claire Blais has remained hidden as a dramatist from Anglophone readers. Nigel Spencer's first-ever translation recreates Blais' disturbing yet lyrical dramas, evoking a world of "winter sleep," while in the new millennium people prepare to put on new costumes, take on new roles.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0921870604
• ISBN13: 9780921870609
• Release Date: November 1998
• Publisher: Ronsdale Press
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.1" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

BOOKS IN CANADA

IN AN EXCELLENT INTRODUCTION, NIGEL SPENCER, THE TRANSLATOR,CONTEXTUALIZES THESE LYRICAL, ELLIPTICAL WORKS...ALL FIVE PLAYSFEATURE FEMALE VOICES ASSERTING THEMSELVES IN PAINFUL DIALOGUE WITH MALE PARTNERS. OSCILLATING BETWEEN INTIMATE PERSONAL DETAIL AND PHILOSOPHICAL ABSTRACTION, BETWEEN TENTATIVENESS AND AGGRESSION, EACH PLAY PROBES A DIFFERENT SENSIBILITY, A DIFFERENT TENSION. . . . THE DIALOGUE IS RENDERED EVEN MORE POIGNANT BY THE ACCOMPANYING MUSICALITY OF BLAIS' LONG POETIC LINES. . . . PERHAPS THE MOST EVOCATIVE OF ALL IS THE STUDY IN CONTRASTS, "FEVER"--A BEAUTIFULLY ORCHESTRATED DIALOGUE BETWEEN A WIFE AND A HUSBAND IN WHICH SHE UNVEILS HIS HYPOCRISY AND HER COMPLICITY AGAINST THE EXOCITICIZED BACKDROP OF MOROCCO. . . . READING THESE ENIGMATIC MUSINGS SET AMIDST HIGHLY VISUALIZED BACKGROUNDS OR SETS, ONE PARTICIPATES IN THE EQUIVOCAL, TENUOUS RELATIONS BETWEEN MEN AND WOMEN, SPEECH AND SILENCE, OPPRESSSION AND FREEDOM. AS BLAIS, THROUGH THE VOICE OF HER TRANSLATOR, SO ELOQUENTLY PUTS IT: "BUT HERE I AM, AND HE LISTENS. IT IS LATE. AT LEAST, HE SEEMS TO LISTEN."

Blais' Shorter Plays Provoke New Thoughts on Mixed Media.

Blais' drama, undergoing a new resurgence of interest, mostly in the U.S. (U. of Miami., Washington, etc.,) is seeing increased performance in both English and French.WINTERSLEEP presents the unique shorter, or "chamber", plays of an intimacy and a subtlety that are unique and may suggest new directions for the modern theatre, especially for directors who are not afraid to blend different media and life-size puppets with live actors, and evoke fluid and shifting states of consciousness.