Kirjahaku

Finalist, Governor General's Literary Award in the Translation Category Longlist, 2025 Dublin Literary Award A Quebec bestseller based on the life of Michel Jean’s great-grandmother that delivers an empathetic portrait of drastic change in an Innu community. Kukum recounts the story of Almanda Siméon, an orphan raised by her aunt and uncle, who falls in love with a young Innu man despite their cultural differences and goes on to share her life with the Pekuakami Innu community. They accept her as one of their own: Almanda learns their language, how to live a nomadic existence, and begins to break down the barriers imposed on Indigenous women. Unfolding over the course of a century, the novel details the end of traditional ways of life for the Innu, as Almanda and her family face the loss of their land and confinement to reserves, and the enduring violence of residential schools. Kukum intimately expresses the importance of Innu ancestral values and the need for freedom nomadic peoples feel to this day.

Pronzitelnyj roman o ljubvi beloj devushki i indejtsa innu, o zhizni bolshoj semi na fone istoricheskikh peremen.Kak vsekh detej kanadskikh poselentsev, Almandu uchili derzhatsja za svoj nadel zemli i rabotat v pole. No na beregu reki ona vstretila indejtsa, priplyvshego na kanoe, i volnoe kocheve pomanilo ee. Pjatnadtsatiletnjuju Almandu ne ispugali okhota, rybalka, gotovka na kostre i perepravy cherez burnye reki. Ona uchilas chitat oblaka, dubit shkury, rozhala detej. Zhizn semi v lesu byla neverojatno schastlivoj, no idillija prodlilas nedolgo: progress prishel na zemli indejtsev i stal otnimat vse, chto dorogo Almande, odno za drugim.Gorkij, no v to zhe vremja napolnennyj intimnymi intonatsijami i svetom pamjati roman o tekh, kogo dolgoe vremja predpochitali ne zamechat.V osnove knigi - istorija zhizni Kukum, prababushki pisatelja."Mishel Zhan sumel sdelat to, na chto ne sposoben ni odin dokumentalnyj film, reportazh ili kniga po istorii: po-nastojaschemu tronut serdtsa ljudej".La Presse

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 ten 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.