The Harmattan Winds
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
“A fresh little novel, teeming with life, of uncommon strength.” – Gilles Marcotte, L’actualité
An audacious and playful debut novel of adventure, brotherhood, and the search for a homeland — a contemporary classic of Quebecois literature
Written with uncommon wit, The Harmattan Winds is a feast of wordplay, rife with puns and wonder – perfect for devotees of Ali Smith, classic adventure novels like The Adventures of Huckleberry, and John Knowles’s A Separate Peace.
Hidden in the reeds floating on a pond next to the highway, a woman finds a baby bobbing in a shopping basket. Adopted by the Francoeurs, Hugues remains an outsider in his semi-family. At the same time, Habéké is adopted by a Canadian family and brought to Quebec after his own family dies of famine in Ethiopia. On the margins of their small town, the boys become sworn brothers, searching for their roots, desperate to return to exile, to a paradise called Ityopia.
Narrated by the bold and imaginative voice of Hugues, Sylvain Trudel’s prize-winning debut novel is at times serious and at times fantastical. In their child’s world, where Hugues and Habéké haven’t yet learned the prejudices of adults, they embark on adventures, digging holes to China and building fantastical contraptions to take them to far off places, like their hero, explorer Roald Amundsen.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Quebecois author Trudel offers an ode to the power of imagination in his lyrical and enigmatic English-language debut. The narrator, a young boy named Hugues Francoeur, was found abandoned by the side of the road as an infant in rural Quebec. His best friend, Habéké Axoum, was adopted from an unnamed African country after his birth family were killed by famine. Together, the preteens seek a lost paradise they call Ityopia. Their adventures begin with innocent mischief, such as an invented marriage ceremony based on details of African rituals gleaned from an encyclopedia, during which they get naked and cover each other in "magic liquid" including their own blood. Their escapades become more extreme when Habéké's attempt to conjure a lost ancestor causes a fire and severe burns, putting him in the hospital for two weeks. There, Habéké meets a dying girl, Nathalie, and the boys eventually abduct her. They plan to cure her with their magic, a scheme that sets the stage for the novel's disastrous and deadly finale. Trudel sustains a dreamy mood and brings his characters to vivid life. It's a singular tale of trauma diverted into obsessive fantasy.
