Eu book Club "Mend the living"

Saturday, March 4, 2017 – 4pm to 6pm
Alliance Française de Vancouver
Auditorium

Organized by the Alliance Française de Vancouver and EUNIC Canada-Vancouver, the next meeting with the EU Book Club will be with a French novel by Maylis de Kerangal.

"MEND THE LIVING"

Mend the Living is the story of a heart transplant, centred around Simon Limbeau, the boy whose heart is given, and his family.

Taking place within exactly twenty-four hours, the novel traces the thrill of an early-morning winter surf session, the terrible accident that follows, and all the urgency and compassion of the hospital workers, and shock and grief of Simon's family as they negotiate the question of organ donation. Maylis de Kerangal offers glimpses into the thoughts and affective lives of each of the characters: Simon, at the core of the novel; Marianne and Sean, his parents, who have been estranged for some months; Revol, the chief surgeon, music enthusiast, and studier of hallucinogenic plants; Cordelia Owl, the capable new nurse who is reeling from a night spent with her former lover; Thomas Remige, the hospital coordinator, an opera singer, and aficionado of goldfinches; Virgilio, the silvertongued, light-fingered surgeon; Juliette, Simon's girlfriend, who is building a labyrinth inside a Plexiglass case, waiting for Simon's call...

Maylis de Kerangal (born 16 June 1967) is a French author.
Raised in Le Havre, Maylis de Kerangal went on to study history and philosophy in Rouen and Paris. She worked at Paris-based Editions Gallimard (children and youth department, from 1991 to 1996), then travelled in the United States, and went back to studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences.
She wrote her first novel in 2000, and from that moment on became a full-time writer. Her celebrated novel, Birth of a Bridge [Naissance d'un pont, 2010]', presents a literary saga of a handful of men and women who are charged with building a bridge somewhere in a mythical California. Birth of a Bridge was short-listed for the Prix Goncourt and awarded both the Prix Médicis in 2010 and the Premio Gregor von Rezzori in 2014 and has been translated into several languages worldwide.

Mend the Living (Réparer les vivants, 2014) has also won several prizes including the Prix Orange du Livre and the Grand prix RTL du livre. Mend the Living was adapted for the stage at the theatre festival in Avignon, receiving rave reviews for its intimate look at the realities and philosophical questioning around organ donation. It was adapted into the film Heal the Living in 2016.

Admission is free, but please register by e-mail:eubookclub@alliancefrancaise.ca 

Note: The English translation (by Jessica Moore) of the novel, is available in paperback and e-books formats at Chapters and Amazon.