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9780889224667_cover Enlarge Cover
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list price: $18.95
edition:Paperback
category: Biography & Autobiography
published: Jan 2002
ISBN:9780889224667
publisher: Talonbooks

Twelve Opening Acts

by Michel Tremblay, translated by Sheila Fischman

tagged: literary
Description

Alongside his dozens of fascinating and award-winning plays, and in addition to this great Chronicles of the Plateau Mont-Royal series of six epic novels, his translations, adaptations, librettos, and acute portrayals of human emotions in a state of both crisis and redemption, Michel Tremblay has left his readers with three magical keys to the secrets of his great literary achievements.

The first of these, Bambi and Me [Les Vues animés, Leméac, 1990], is a memoir of the movies that shaped his imagination as a child-those he watched in fascination and spent hours deconstructing with his mother, and those he watched on his own.

The second, Twelve Opening Acts [Douze Coups de Théâtre, Leméac, 1992], is an account of Tremblay’s discovery of the theatre as an adolescent: from his first breathtaking recognition of how the imagination is actually a public construct, while watching a performance of Babar the Elephant at the age of six; to his winning of the CBC drama competition with his first play, Le Train.

Between these parenthetical stories, Michel Tremblay offers the reader an entrance into his discovery of the theatricality of life itself-the personal dramas of his homosexuality, the death of his mother, the increasingly frail withdrawing of his father, even the completely unintentional, almost apolitical creation of his nationalist awareness-are recounted in narratives at once devoid of judgment, but at the same time ennobled with a complexity and intensity of passion operatic in its scope and merciless in its sweep.

This is the most ruthless and unsparing, yet tender and evocative insight Tremblay has ever offered into the creation of his literary genius.

About the Authors

Michel Tremblay

A major figure in Québec literature, Michel Tremblay has built an impressive body of work as a playwright, novelist, translator, and screenwriter. To date Tremblay’s complete works include twenty-nine plays, thirty-one novels, six collections of autobiographical stories, a collection of tales, seven screenplays, forty-six translations and adaptations of works by foreign writers, nine plays and twelve stories printed in diverse publications, an opera libretto, a song cycle, a Symphonic Christmas Tale, and two musicals. His work has won numerous awards and accolades; his plays have been published and translated into forty languages and have garnered critical acclaim in Canada, the United States, and more than fifty countries around the world.

Sheila Fischman

A major figure in Québec literature, Michel Tremblay has built an impressive body of work as a playwright, novelist, translator, and screenwriter. To date Tremblay’s complete works include twenty-nine plays, thirty-one novels, six collections of autobiographical stories, a collection of tales, seven screenplays, forty-six translations and adaptations of works by foreign writers, nine plays and twelve stories printed in diverse publications, an opera libretto, a song cycle, a Symphonic Christmas Tale, and two musicals. His work has won numerous awards and accolades; his plays have been published and translated into forty languages and have garnered critical acclaim in Canada, the United States, and more than fifty countries around the world.
Contributor Notes

Michel Tremblay
One of the most produced and the most prominent playwrights in the history of Canadian theatre, Michel Tremblay has received countless prestigious honours and accolades. His dramatic, literary and autobiographical works have long enjoyed remarkable international popularity, including translations of his plays that have achieved huge success in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East.

Awards and Recognition
Prix du Grand (2009) La Traversée de la ville (Leméac Editeur Inc.)
Blue Metropolis International Literary Grand Prix (2006)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Books (2003) Birth of a Bookworm
Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play (2000) For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again
Chalmers Awards (1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1978, 1986, 1989, 2000)
Governor General’s Performing Arts Award (1999)
Molson Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts (1994)
Louis-Hémon Prize (1994)
Montreal Book Fair Grand Public Prize (1994)
Banff Centre National Award (1992)
Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France (1991)
Chevalier of the Order of Quebec (1990)
San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Festival Long-Standing Public Service Award (1989)
CBC Anik Prize (1988)
Athanase-David Lifetime Achievement Prize (1988)
Quebec-Paris Prize (1985)
Chevalier of Arts and Letters of France (1984)

Sheila Fischman
Born in Saskatchewan, Sheila Fischman is a member of the Order of Canada and has a doctorate from the University of Waterloo.

A two-time Governor General’s Award winner, Fischman has translated from French to English more than a hundred novels by such prominent Quebec writers as Michel Tremblay, Jacques Poulin, Anne Hébert, François Gravel, Marie-Claire Blais and Roch Carrier.

In 2008, Fischman was awarded the prestigious Molson Prize for her outstanding contributions to Canadian literature.

Awards
  • Short-listed, Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation

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