Michel Jean is an award-winning writer, and former news anchor and investigative journalist. He worked at Radio-Canada and the Quebec television network TVA before devoting himself full-time to his writing. He has published more than a dozen books, including his bestselling novels Kukum, an exploration of his Innu roots and winner of the Prix France-Québec, and Qimmik, which deals with a harrowing chapter of Inuit history. His work has been translated into several languages. Jean has also edited two short story collections featuring Indigenous voices: Amun, released in fall 2016, and Wapke, published in May 2021, both of which are available in English. Jean is Innu from Mashteuiatsh, and his native origins resonate in many of his writings.
Exiled from his community after serving time for his father’s murder, a young Innu man finds himself adrift on the streets of Montreal.
Released from prison after 10 years spent behind bars for the murder of his violent, alcoholic father, Elie Mestenapeo finds himself out in the world again, but alone. Banished for life from his community, Nutashkuan, he heads south to Montreal, where he becomes part of a new community—Cree, Nakota, Inuit, Innu, Mohawk and Atikamekw come together in Cabot Square. There, Elie meets Mary and Tracy, Inuuk twin sisters who take him under their wing; Jimmy, a Nakota man who hands out hot meals to those the city has forgotten; and Mafia Doc, an aging, self-proclaimed nurse who refuses to abandon his tent even as winter’s brutal cold descends.
In this deeply compassionate novel, Michel Jean gives voice to those living on society’s margins. With tenderness and unflinching honesty, he reveals lives scarred by violence and addiction but also sustained by resilience, kinship, and the faint, persistent light of hope.
In the spirit of reconciliation, we acknowledge that we live, work and play on the traditional territories of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Kainai, Piikani), the Tsuut’ina, the Iyarhe Nakoda Nations, the Otipemisiwak Métis Government of the Métis Nation within Alberta District 6, and all people who make their homes in the Treaty 7 region of Southern Alberta.
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