Eka ashate · Ne flanche pas
Conversation with Naomi Fontaine

Bookings open on 18 August!

The CCC invites you to a meeting with Innu author Naomi Fontaine, one of Canada’s leading voices in contemporary Indigenous literature, on the occasion of the publication in France of her fourth novel Eka ashate – Ne flanche pas (éditions Mémoire d’encrier).

In her writings, Naomi Fontaine gathers and transmits the words, stories and memories of her elders. She would like to invite her mother, Lise Michel, the protagonist of this new novel, to join her on the CCC stage for an intergenerational dialogue that is both intimate and universal, about her experiences, her resistance and that of her Innu community.

Eka ashate – Ne flanche pas is an unprecedented plunge into a world of women and men who have forged – at the cost of blood and humor – hope and

tenderness. Paced by the forest and the resistance of the ancestors, this novel is made up of fragments, experiences and silences. The mother-courage teaches the narrator, her daughter, the strength of her people, who suffer, live, laugh and look to the future with serenity.

This meeting will be hosted by Marie Jouvin, journalist with Lire Magazine and lecteurs.com, and followed by a book signing in collaboration with Librairie du Québec in Paris

Naomi Fontaine is the author of a major body of work, published by Mémoire d’encrier: Kuessipan (2011) , Manikanetish ( 2017), Shuni ( 2019).  Critically acclaimed and translated into a dozen languages, her books have been adapted for stage and screen. Naomi Fontaine lives and writes in her Innu community of Uashat. Eka ashate – Ne flanche pas is her fourth novel “