Conversation with Gabrielle Filteau-Chiba
"Bivouac"

After the success of Encabanée (Le Mot et le reste, 2021; Folio, 2022) and Sauvagines (Stock, 2022), Quebec writer Gabrielle Filteau-Chiba publishes her new book Bivouac (Stock, 2023) and returns to her sensitive marginalized, and above all, free characters. She writes a great novel of love and adventure about the defence of the environment, to be discovered at the Canadian Cultural Centre on Thursday 25 May at 8 pm.

Raphaëlle and Anouk have spent the winter in their yurt in the Gaspé Peninsula, outside of time and the world. As spring approaches, Raphaëlle convinces her partner to join the Orléans Farm community to explore the possibility of revolutionary farming and communal living… and the promise of enough canned goods to get through the cold seasons, warm in their den.

But Anouk soon feels the strain of living in a community and the first frictions between her and Raphaëlle begin. The young woman decides to go and recharge her batteries in her cabin in Kamouraska, between the thousand-year-old pines and the murmur of the river. It is not long before she runs into Riopelle-Robin, a fierce ecological activist with whom she has a brief but passionate affair. Alongside experienced “eco-warriors”, he is preparing a new mission: Operation Bivouac. His objective: to prevent an oil pipeline project that is to cross the Lower St. Lawrence and threatens to raze a public forest, a true jewel of biodiversity.

Anouk, soon joined by Raphaëlle and her allies from the Ferme Océane, throws herself into defending the territory. The fight promises to be fierce, for where some see Nature to be protected, others see a resource to be exploited, no matter the cost.

In 2013, Gabrielle Filteau-Chiba left her job, home and family in Montreal, sold all her possessions and moved to a wooden cabin in the Kamouraska region of Quebec. She spent three years in the heart of the forest, without running water, electricity or a network. With coyotes as her only company. Her first novel, Encabanée (Le Mot et le reste, 2021; Folio, 2022), was unanimously acclaimed by the press and booksellers in both Quebec and France. Sauvagines (Stock, 2022), her second novel, was a finalist for the Prix des libraires, the Prix Ouest France Étonnants Voyageurs and the Prix Joseph Kessel. It is currently being adapted into an audiovisual work.

This conversation wil be hosted by Gladys Marivat, journalist and literary critic for Le Monde des Livres and Lire Magazine Littéraire.

It will be followed by a signing session, bring your book !

In collaboration with Éditions Stock