Pelagie-la-charrette - Tapa blanda

By the Treaty of Paris in 1763, France ceded what later became Nova Scotia to Britain, but British soldiers had already evicted the French-speaking population of Acadie from their farms and villages eight years previously. The soldiers forced the Acadians onto boats - seperating families and communities. Those who survived the voyage found themselves stranded at whatever points on the North American coast were most convenient for the captains of their vessels. This gross act of inhumanity has never been properly chronicled. Antonine Maillet, with this powerful and heart-rending historical novel, tells the story of Pelagie and her family who over more than two decades, through many hardships, struggled to return to their homeland - now inhabited by new British settlers. Pelagie, like Brecht's 'Mother Courage' is a woman of indomitable will who keeps her brood together and generously allows others to join it. Like 'The Grapes of Wrath' and other novels based on a voyage of adversity, it is symbolic of the triumph of the human spirit and its power to survive the inhumanity imposed by kings or governments for "raisons d'etat". Antonine Maillet is herself of Acadian descent and lives in Montreal. 'Pelagie-La-Charrette' won the Prix Goncourt in 1979.