Voices of Indigenous women
Discussion with Carole Labarre and Virginia Pésémapeo Bordeleau

The Canadian Cultural Centre invites you to a conversation on the stories and voices of two Indigenous women: a crossover between Innu author Carole Labarre and Cree Métis author and painter Virginia Pésémapeo Bordeleau.

Carole Labarre draws her inspiration from the history of her community. Through her writing and poetry, she seeks to sublimate her culture and give a voice to the Elders. Her first novel, L’or des mélèzes (Mémoire d’encrier, 2023) is a series of written portraits, captured moments and luminous snapshots about the history of her community, her family and her elder Pishimuss. 

Virginia Pésémapeo Bordeleau has created a moving body of work in which family, territory, mythical animals, plants and rocks form an organic world, charged with a constantly renewed energy: powerful, tender and luminous books that are also about encounters, otherness, desire and the future.

• Carole Labarre is a member of the Innu community of Pessamit on Quebec’s North Shore. A finalist for the 2023 Governor General’s Literary Award, her novel L’or des mélèzes also won the 2023 Indigenous Voices Award, the 2023 Myriam Caron Literary Award, and was an international finalist for the 2023 Senghor Prize for the Best Francophone and Francophile Novel. She was also awarded the Innu Arts and Culture Award of Excellence 2023, and is currently in the running for the Prix du Rendez-vous du premier roman, 2023-2024.
• Born in Jamésie, northwestern Quebec, Virginia Pésémapeo Bordeleau is an Eeyou multidisciplinary artist. She has published Ourse bleue (novel – La Pleine lune, 2007; Dépaysage, 2024), De rouge et de blanc (poetry – Mémoire d’encrier, 2012), L’amant du lac (erotic novel – Mémoire d’encrier, 2013) and L’enfant hiver (novel – Mémoire d’encrier, 2014).

The discussion will be hosted by Marie Jouvin, journalist (Lire Magazine) and founder of the blog Trouble Bibliomane. A book-selling and signing session will follow with the Librairie du Québec in Paris.

In partnership with Mémoire d’encrier and in conjunction with the Festival Paroles Autochtones in Nantes.