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A modern-day fable and mythic bildungsroman,
The Faerie Devouring tells the story of a young girl raised by her grandmother (a stalwart matriarch and wicked fairy godmother) following her mother's death during childbirth. The absent mother haunts the story of this girl whose greatest misfortune is to have been born female.
In this critically-acclaimed coming-of-age story by Quebecois author Catherine Lalonde, and translated by Oana Avasilichioaei, questions of what it means to be born female and grow into a woman are explored. The story is rife with song, myth, phantasmagoria, spells, desire, ferocious poetic telling, wild imagination, and unruly language. Lalonde uses the form of a disenchanted and metaphorical fable to recount what it means to find a life force in one's lineage, even when one is born into "nothing."
About the author
OANA AVASILICHIOAEI is a Montreal-based poet, translator, and artist. She is the author of many books, including
Expeditions of a Chimaera (with Erín Moure; 2009),
We, Beasts (2012; winner of the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry) and
Limbinal (2015). Previous translations include Suzanne Leblanc's
The Thought House of Philippa (co-translated with Ingrid Pam Dick; 2015), Catherine Lalonde's
The Faerie Devouring (winner of the 2018 Cole Foundation Prize for Translation), three books by Bertrand Laverdure, including
Universal Bureau of Copyrights (finalist for the 2015 ReLit Award,
Readopolis (winner of the 2017 Governor General's Literary Award for Translation), and
The Neptune Room (finalist for the 2020 Governor General's Literary Award for Translation).
CATHERINE LALONDE lives in Montreal. Her publications include Cassandre (2005), and Corps étranger (2008, winner of the Émile-Nelligan Award) and La dévoration des fées (2017), finalist for the 2018 Governor General's Literary Awards. She works as a journalist for the Montreal daily Le Devoir.
