With the Animals

Considered the standard-bearer for the great Franco-Swiss literary tradition, exemplified by authors such as Jacques Chessex and C. F. Ramuz, No?lle Revaz may also remind English-language readers of Louis-Ferdinand C?line: "With the Animals," her shocking debut, is a novel of mud and blood whose linguistic audaciousness is matched only by its brutality, misanthropy, and gallows humor. Narrated by the singular Paul--a violent, narrowminded farmer whose unceasing labor leaves him with more love for his livestock than his family--"With the Animals" is at once a fantastically exaggerated and entirely honest portrait of masculinity gone mad. With his mute and detested wife and children huddled at his side, Paul is only roused from his regimen of hard labor and casual cruelty when a farmhand, Georges, comes to work on his property for the summer. His sovereignty seemingly threatened, an element of unwanted humanity now injected into his universe, Paul's little kingdom seems ripe at last for a revolution.


About the Author
Revaz, Noelle: - Noelle Revaz was born in 1968 in the canton of Valais, Switzerland. She is the author of numerous short stories and a novel, "Efina". Besides her work as a writer, she teaches creative writing at the Swiss Literature Institute at Biel/Bienne, where she lives.Wilson, W. Donald: - W. Donald Wilson joined the faculty of the University of Waterloo in 1970, where he remained until his retirement. A former chair of the Department of French Studies at UW, he is the translator of "Babies for the Nation: The Medicalization of Motherhood in Quebec, 1910 1970" (WLU Press, 2009) and "A Brief History of Women in Quebec" (WLU Press, 2014), both by Denyse Baillargeon, and, with Paul G. Socken, of "Aaron: A Novel", by Yves Th?riault (WLU Press, 2007).