Crossing the Continent

Michel Tremblay is one of Canada's most loved writer's in French and English. His plays and novels are taught in courses around the world. Les Belles Soeurs and The Fat Woman Next Door were determining factors in Quebec French being recognized as its own language, Joual.Crossing the Continent is the first in a series that offers the back story of one of Tremblay's most famous characters. Born in Providence, Rhode Island to a Cree mother and a French father, Reauna, affectionately known throughout Tremblay's work as "Nana," was sent with her two younger sisters, Bea and Alice, to be raised on her maternal grandparents' farm in Sainte-Maria-de-Saskatchewan At the age of ten, Nana is suddenly told by her mother, whom she hasn't seen in four years and who now lives in Montreal, to come "home" and help take care of her new baby brother. So it is that Nana embarks alone on an epic journey by train through Regina, Winnipeg and Ottawa, on which she encounters a dizzying array of strangers.To our delight, Michel Tremblay, here, takes his readers outside Quebec for the first time, on a quintessential North American journey- crossing the continent.