Death of the Spider Front Cover

Paperback / softback
ISBN: 9780889222984
Pages: 64
Pub. Date: January 1 1991
Dimensions: 9" x 6" x 0.25"
Rights: Available: WORLD
Categories
Fiction / FIC019000

  • FICTION / Literary

     Shop local bookstores

Death of the Spider

By Michèle Mailhot
Translated by Neil B. Bishop
Preface by Marie-Claire Blais

“Neil Bishop has … revived this novel, Death of the Spider, in the true light of its prophecy (be it but dreamed), in the bright light too of its modernism, for this novel is both a poetic indictment of our contemporary society and a forerunner of the feminist novel—while admirably avoiding the traps of theory and rigidity. The author draws us into our very depths, our own submissiveness, our own hereditary sheep-like docility, she shuts us in with her main character, staring at the spider on the ceiling, in that secret bedroom of rebellion where this nameless heroine has withdrawn to think about her fate which is also ours and where she and we are left, alone with the shameful images of our own condition, our own, often willing, bondage.” – from the preface by Marie-Claire Blais

Short-listed 1992 Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation