A visceral, luminous novel about a Métis woman tracing the life and death of her son.

One late September day, amid the year’s first snowfall, the winter child is born. He does not breathe. His mother watches helplessly until “at least the baby uttered a first tentative croak like a frog unsure of spring’s arrival.”

Then again, and again, and again, the winter child narrowly avoids death’s reach. His mother knows “he would be her wound, she would have to battle to keep him with her, to defend him against the worst of all enemies.”

Originally published in French and told through alternating and overlapping memories, Winter Child is a powerful meditation on grief and life. With a poet and storyteller’s language, Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau traces a mother’s journey from devastation to strength, descending to the darkest inner depths, and finally finding the generosity of life and love.

Born in Jamésie in north-west Quebec, Virginia Pesemapeo Bordeleau is a multidisciplinary eeyou artist. For the past forty-four years, she has exhibited in Quebec, Canada, Europe and Mexico. Since 2007, she has published three novels, three collections of poetry, one storybook, one artist’s book and a collection of correspondence. In 2021, she was awarded a medal by Québec’s Assemblée nationale du Québec for her life’s work and in 2023 she was appointed as Chevalier in the Ordre des Palmes académiques. In 2024, the Université de Moncton granted her an honorary Doctor of Arts. Virginia still lives in Abitibi-Témiscamingue where she continues to paint, sculpt and, of course, write with the authenticity that characterizes all of her work.

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Susan Ouriou is an award-winning literary translator who has translated the fiction of Quebec, Latin-American, French and Spanish authors. She won Canada’s Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation in 2009 for Pieces of Me by Charlotte Gingras, after first being shortlisted for The Road to Chlifa by Michèle Marineau and then for Necessary Betrayals by Guillaume Vigneault. The Road to Chlifa was also awarded an honour list placing by IBBY (International Board of Books for Youth) as were Naomi and Mrs. Lumbago by Gilles Tibo, This Side of the Sky by Marie-Francine Hébert and Pieces of Me. Necessary Betrayals was also voted one of the 100 best books of 2002 by the Globe and Mail. Another translation, The Thirteenth Summer by José Luis Olaizola, was runner-up for the John Glassco Translation Prize. She has worked as the director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre and as faculty for the Banff Centre's Aboriginal Emerging Writers residency. She is the editor of the 2010 anthology Beyond Words – Translating the World.

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Christelle Morelli is a French-English literary translator and teacher in the Francophone school system. She has translated the anthology Languages of Our Land: Indigenous Poems and Stories from Quebec and the children’s book Blanche Hates the Night. She has also co-translated 15 fiction, non-fiction and children’s books with Susan Ouriou. Her French to English co-translations other than Winter Child are: Against God, Sand Bar, Jane, the Fox and Me, Millions for a Song, Once Upon a Rainy Day, Stolen Sisters, Louis Undercover and Hunting Houses. Her English to French co-translation titles are: La toute dernière première fois, Chin Chiang et la danse du dragon, Lune jaune, à bientôt, Le chandail d’Amos, Une musique du ciel, Leçons de la Mère-Terre and Un saumon pour Simon. Her co-translation with Susan Ouriou, Stolen Sisters, was shortlisted for the Governor General’s Award for Translation in 2015.

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