Books by Antonine Maillet

"You see a descendant of one of your own ancestors and you say, Hi, there, Pit-à-Thomas-à-Picoté, how's it going, eh? Then you see someone across the room looks just like you do, and who's speaking like it's you who's talking, and who has the same job as you, and who wouldn't look down her nose at you just because you're a cleaning lady who's never done nothing much and never been nowhere." The old woman speaks in a voice rough with the stuff of life. She's never done nothing much and never been nowhere, but the stories she tells fill a world. In her younger days, she traded favours with sailors to make ends meet; now she wears her body down scrubbing floors. She rants and reminisces, telling stories about herself, her friends and neighbours, the priest and his church, and every other aspect of of life in her village. Bawdy and tenacious, sharp-tongued and warm-hearted, la Sagouine's voice is the irrepressible voice of Acadie. With La Sagouine, Antonine Maillet brought Acadian literature to the world's notice. Since then, Maillet has been awarded the Prix Goncourt (the first non-French citizen to be so honoured) and the Governor General's Award for her novels Pélagie-la-charette and Don l'Orignal.

""On the seventh day, God rested." He'd had a busy week, forming the earth and everything in it and creating Adam and Eve. But, after all, a week is only a week." In On the Eighth Day, Antonine Maillet imagines a wider, more exuberant world created on "the day when everything is dared and anything is possible." She spins a tale of two brothers -- a giant carved from an oak tree and a scamp shaped out of bread dough -- who set off to find their true inheritance. The story of their travels is a fantastic picaresque -- a cheerful Gulliver's Travels, a comic Pilgrim's Progress, an Acadian Wizard of Oz.

On day, a hay-covered island materializes offshore, an island populated by -- is it possible? -- fleas. Watched by the lighthouse keeper, the fleas take human form: the ruler, Don l'Orignal, with his moose-antler crown; his brave lieutenants; the doughty charwoman, spy, and rabble-rouser, La Sagouine; and all their friends and relations. Antonine Maillet's provocative and entertaining fantasy pits the clever, uncouth Flea Islanders against the almost as clever but far more civilized villagers. The unexpected outcome holds up a mirror to comical, earthy, and poignant human nature as well as to Acadian history.