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ISBN 921870-68-X
6 x 9
164 pp, $15.95
Fiction
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The City in the Egg
By Michel
Tremblay
As an innovative chronicler of the
"little people" of Quebec, Michel Tremblay has no
peer. Yet few Anglophone readers realize that Tremblay began
as a writer of works of fantasy. Now, however, Michael
Bullock, who won the Canada Council translation award
for his translation of Tremblay's first collection of
stories — Contes pour buveurs attardés (Stories for
Late Night Drinkers) — has worked his magic upon
Tremblay's first novel, La Cité dans l'oeuf (1969).
Here Tremblay gives free rein to his immensely fertile
imagination in a story that combines extremes of fantasty
with a strong science fiction element that avoids the usual
obsessive preoccupation with technological concerns. The
story revolves around and within a miraculous egg which the
narrator inherits from his father. One day he discovers the
secret of entering into the egg under certain conditions of
the moon. Once inside, he finds himself in a strange city
with even stranger inhabitants, monstrous creatures, each of
whom rules over a particular district and each eager to
enlist the narrator on his side, for he possesses a
mysterious power that they need to obtain. In his
translation, Michael Bullock has remained faithful to the
letter of Tremblay's prose while capturing the spirit and
power of Tremblay's vision. A brilliant novel in its own
right, The City in the Egg will prove essential to
readers wishing to understand Tremblay's dramatic and
fictional ability to invest the ordinary with the bizarre.
Michel Tremblay, Quebec's
most well known author, was born in 1942 on rue Fabre in the
Plateau Mont-Royal section of Montreal. He first became
famous with his play Les Belles-Soeurs. This was
followed by a full cycle of plays, which includes the
much-played Hosanna. His novels include The Fat
Woman Next Door is Pregnant and The First Quarter of
the Moon.
Michael Bullock, himself a
novelist and poet, was for many years the official
translator of Max Frisch. His translations of books and
plays from French and German now number close to 200 and
have received many awards.
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