Jean-Marc has fallen in love. The object of his affection is Mathieu, a young actor working as a salesman at Eaton’s while waiting for his big break. But Jean-Marc, a fusty academic, is not sure about being able to make room in his life for Mathieu’s four-year-old son, Sébastien.
Considered daring and even shocking for some when it first appeared in the 1980s, this story has stood the test of time and revealed itself to be an enduring addition to Tremblay’s sweeping, compassionate imagination of human sensibility and passion.
The Heart Laid Bare marks a significant departure for Michel Tremblay, being the first of his mature novels not set in the semi-autobiographical milieu of his childhood. Yet this thoroughly contemporary love story is told with all the warmth and empathy so characteristic of all his work.
“A simply written, but highly topical and touching tale.”
— London Times
One of the most produced and the most prominent playwrights in the history of Canadian theatre, Michel Tremblay has received countless prestigious honours and accolades. His dramatic, literary and autobiographical works have long enjoyed remarkable international popularity, including translations of his plays that have achieved huge success in Europe, the Americas and the Middle East.
Awards and Recognition*
Prix du Grand (2009) La Traversée de la ville (Leméac Editeur Inc.)
Blue Metropolis International Literary Grand Prix (2006)
Globe and Mail Top 100 Books (2003) Birth of a Bookworm
Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding New Play (2000) For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again
Chalmers Awards (1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1978, 1986, 1989, 2000)
Governor General’s Performing Arts Award (1999)
Molson Prize for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts (1994)
Louis-Hémon Prize (1994)
Montreal Book Fair Grand Public Prize (1994)
Banff Centre National Award (1992)
Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters of France (1991)
Chevalier of the Order of Quebec (1990)
San Francisco Lesbian and Gay Festival Long-Standing Public Service Award (1989)
CBC Anik Prize (1988)
Athanase-David Lifetime Achievement Prize (1988)
Quebec-Paris Prize (1985)
Chevalier of Arts and Letters of France (1984).
Born in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Sheila Fischman was raised in Ontario and is a graduate of the University of Toronto. She is a founding member of the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada and has also been a columnist for the Globe and Mail and Montreal Gazette, a broadcaster with CBC Radio, and literary editor of the Montreal Star. She now devotes herself full time to literary translation, specializing in contemporary Quebec fiction, and has translated more than 125 Quebec novels by, among others, Michel Tremblay, Jacques Poulin, Anne Hébert, François Gravel, Marie-Claire Blais, and Roch Carrier.
…that an excerpt from Michel Tremblay’s The Heart Laid Bare , translated by Sheila Fischman, will soon become … 1969, will be commemorated with an excerpt from The Heart Laid Bare, alongside its original French counterpart, Le …
…Michel Tremblay (translated by Sheila Fischman) The Heart Laid Bare by Michel Tremblay (translated by Sheila …