The End of the World Is Elsewhere

Autumnal equinox. The End of the World sails on the Aegean Sea. Aboard is Marjolaine, a cook who recently lost her job at a greasy spoon. She rubs shoulders with chess players, a bookseller, a retired professor, a romance novelist, a blue-haired singer … Meanwhile, elsewhere on the planet, people play cards, while others celebrate, read, dream or cry, and still others die. All these lives intersect, meet up again, disappear, and above all tell us that there is not only one truth. In The End of the World is Elsewhere, volume four of her Fragments of the World tetralogy, Hélène Rioux creates an intricate and complex novel filled with topical issues and references to history and literature.

AUTHOR

Jonathan Kaplansky

Jonathan Kaplansky studied at Tufts University and received his MA in French Language and Literature from McGill and MA in Translation at the University of Ottawa. He has translated works by Hélène Rioux, Hélène Dorion and Annie Ernaux. Originally from New Brunswick, he currently lives in Montreal.

AUTHOR

Hélène Rioux

Hélène Rioux has published poetry, news articles, short stories, translations, and seven novels. She received the Prix France-Québec and the Prix ringuet de l’Académie des Lettres du Québec in 2008 for Mercredi soir au Bout du monde (translated as Wednesday Night at the End of the World), the Grand Prix littéraire du Journal de Montréal, and the Prix de la Société des Ecrivains canadiens for Chambre avec baignoire in 1992. She has been a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award five times. Her novels have been translated into English, Spanish, and Bulgarian. She has translated books into French by Elizabeth Hay, Yann Martel, Jeffrey Moore and Johanna Skibsrud. She lives in Montreal, Quebec.