Book Description
Originally published in French under the title Soifs, critics around the world called this book a tour de force, comparing Blais with Virginia Woolf, Dante, Sophocles, and Shakespeare. This swirling, baroque fresco captures the mood of our apocalyptic age, rendering it in powerfully evocative prose.

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

About the Author
Marie-Claire Blais has been the recipient of the Governor General's Award for French fiction three times, the Athanase-David Prize, the Médicis Prize, the Molson Prize, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. She is the author of Thunder and Light.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

An apocalyptic sensibility and stirring prose offer a vision of the consequences of humanity's tolerance of injustice and suffering in this celebrated novel. On the shores of the Gulf of Mexico during the last days of the 20th century, Renata and a host of personalities including writers, artists, children, young men dying of AIDS, refugees, and members of the Ku Klux Klan converge to celebrate a baby's birth and the turn of the millennium. Separate worlds of great wealth and extreme poverty intermingle on this island to reveal the challenges of life in the modern age.