Rage Letters, The

By (author): Valérie Bah

Translated by: Kama La Mackerel

An exhausted security guard dreams of home. A sculptor and a pothead have great sex — in the shadow of wax ex-lovers. A diversity workshop devolves into a familiar nightmare.

Throughout this deadpan collection, determined, damned, and triumphant characters appear and reappear, and their links become clear over the course of the fragmented narrative. The author playfully traces the portrait of the intertwined lives of a group of Black queer and trans friends as they navigate the social violence, traumas, and contradictions of their circumstances.

Originally published in French in 2021 by les Éditions du remue-ménage, as part of the Martiales collection, the stories in Bah’s The Rage Letters — set in Montreal and beyond — are sometimes brief, often conversational, and always generative of possibilities through the characters’ desire, rage, and acts of rebellion.

AUTHOR

Kama La Mackerel

Kama La Mackerel is an educator, visual artist, performer, writer and translator who works between and across English, French and Mauritian Kreol. They are the author of the award-winning poetry collection ZOM-FAM (Metonymy Press) and have translated works by Canadian writers Vivek Shraya and Kai Cheng Thom. They have lectured, performed and exhibited their work internationally. Find them on social media @kamalamackerel


AUTHOR

Valérie Bah

Valérie Bah is a Tiohtià:ke-based filmmaker and writer whose work explores intergenerational trauma & healing, as well as mundane/radical acts of survival. Couched in magical realism, Val’s narratives are driven by Black feminist thought and lived experience.


Reviews

Press coverage for Les enragé.e.s and :

“Les enragé.e.s describes, in a spirited language, the happy obstinacy of those who, despite setbacks, refuse to let their joy be diminished by the violence of a society that tolerates them only at the price of their silence or their obedience.”

— Le Devoir

“My intention was to write stories, construct riddles around liberation. How does someone in a very banal, realist scenario unlock something that gives them more space, or how [do] they get to see themselves in the front seat?”

— Valérie Bah, from an interview with Montreal Review of Books


Awards

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Excerpts & Samples ×

An exhausted security guard dreams of home. A sculptor and a pothead have great sex — in the shadow of wax ex-lovers. A diversity workshop devolves into a familiar nightmare.

Throughout this deadpan collection, determined, damned, and triumphant characters appear and reappear, and their links become clear over the course of the fragmented narrative. The author playfully traces the portrait of the intertwined lives of a group of Black queer and trans friends as they navigate the social violence, traumas, and contradictions of their circumstances.

Originally published in French in 2021 by les Éditions du remue-ménage, as part of the Martiales collection, the stories in Bah’s The Rage Letters — set in Montreal and beyond — are sometimes brief, often conversational, and always generative of possibilities through the characters’ desire, rage, and acts of rebellion.

Reader Reviews

Details

Dimensions:

200 Pages
8in * 5.25in * 1in
1lb

Published:

November 21, 2023

Country of Publication:

CA

Publisher:

Metonymy Press

ISBN:

9781777485276

Book Subjects:

FICTION / LGBTQ+ / General

Language:

eng

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