Anne Hébert, Les Fous de Bassan [In the Shadow of the Wind]

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For her fifth novel,

Les Fous de Bassan

(published in 1982; translated in 1983 by Sheila Fischman under the title

In the Shadow of the Wind

), Anne Hébert wins the Fémina prize, making the book an academic and popular success. “If the storyline mainly revolves around the fury of murder, the events seem less determined by the characters’ logic than by an underlying curse, emanating from the place itself” (Biron

et al

., 2007: 317). The pattern of murder indeed reveals itself more unpredictable than in the previous novel,

Kamouraska

(1970), where a woman drives her lover to kill an incestuous and dangerous husband. To quote the authors of

Histoire de la littérature québécoise

(2007):

Anne Hébert’s entire production is haunted by the poetry of evil and what Robert Harvey calls

4755 words

Citation: Pascal, Marie. "Les Fous de Bassan". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 09 August 2017 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35853, accessed 19 March 2024.]

35853 Les Fous de Bassan 3 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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