To See Out the Night

After a man inadvertently swallows an insect, he withdraws from the human race; another feels an ape growing inside him; and a son struggles to decipher the meaning of his father?s death. Visceral, surprising, and surreal, these twelve stories from David Clerson move from the charged darkness of the woods to the urban underground, while characters set a course to see out the night.

Scurrying insects and luminous jellyfish reveal a predatory, ever-present world of childhood fairy tales, lurking shadows, and unrelenting fevers. Individuals are swallowed up by cities and bogs in this study of nature and humanity in all their terrifying glory. Throughout, Clerson draws?and blurs?the lines between man and beast, and life and death, all beneath an impassive, ailing sky.

AUTHOR

David Clerson

David Clerson was born in Sherbrooke, Quebec, in 1978 and lives in Montreal. His first novel, Brothers, also translated by Katia Grubisic for QC Fiction, was a finalist for the Governor General?s Literary Award for Translation and a National Post Book of the Year.

Katia Grubisic is a writer, editor, and translator. She has been a finalist for the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry, and her collection of poems What if red ran out won the Gerald Lampert award for best first book. She has published translations of works by Marie-Claire Blais, Martine Delvaux, and Stéphane Martelly. Her translation of David Clerson?s first novel, Brothers, was shortlisted for the Governor General?s Award for translation.

AUTHOR

Katia Grubisic

Katia Grubisic is a writer, editor, and translator whose work has appeared in various Canadian and international publications. Her collection What if red ran out was shortlisted for the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry and won the 2009 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book. Her translations of David Clerson’s Brothers and Alina Dumitrescu’s A Cemetery for Bees were both shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for translation.

Reviews

WINNER QWF Cole Foundation Award for Translation 2023

&#147David Clerson is one of the best-kept secrets in Quebec literature. Absolutely fascinating!&#148 Les Effrontées

&#147These short stories by David Clerson land somewhere between Kafka, Horacio Quiroga, and Raymond Carver … Unusual, tragic, and funny.&#148 Simon Boulerice, arts columnist

&#147Clerson’s strange fables lend themselves to shifts in meaning, curious associations, unusual combinations.&#148 ???? Laurence Perron, Lettres québécoises

&#147David Clerson has captured the malaise of our times.&#148 Josée Boileau, Journal de Montréal

&#147A powerful world where the fantastic meets the organic in compelling fashion.&#147 Jury, Grand Prix du livre de Montréal 2019

&#147David Clerson toys with reality. Whether his characters are fleeing it, reinterpreting it, or trying to make sense of it, the unexpected paths they take cast our lives in a different light.>&#148 Sophie Ouimet, La Presse

&#147In an apocalyptic world where myth meets dystopia, these short stories conjure up a recognizable present by drawing on the fantastical and the unusual ? At once comic and profoundly melancholic, this is probably also David Clerson’s most political book. He imagines (without requiring a huge leap of the imagination) a world that ignores its intellectuals as much as it does its misfits.&#148 Dominic Tardif, Le Devoir

&#147A collection of short stories that reads like a thriller, tinged with horror and the uncanny. A remarkable piece of writing.&#148 Coop Zone Bookstore