Rebecca, Born in the Maelstrom

With this astounding fourth novel in her ongoing series of contemporary masterpieces, Marie-Claire Blais invites us again to enter a complex circle of unforgettable characters. But this time, the tone is different: Blais' writing has acquired a new, buoyant, electrifying rhythm -- a rhythm described as "the heartbeat of the world." As we follow a central character named Rebecca, the voice in the novel becomes the voice of the world inventing itself, and the future playing itself out. Here Nigel Spencer, Marie-Claire Blais' longtime translator, gives us Blais' singular vision in supple English prose that is as transcendent and nuanced as the original French.