Gérard Étienne’s
Vous n’êtes pas seul[You Are Not Alone] (2007) is a socially engaged novel, mostly autobiographical. The main character is a Black homeless man who had escaped from a psychiatric asylum in the middle of a snow storm and was taken in, half frozen, by a kind woman, insensible to her neighbor’s racial and xenophobic remarks. The author emblemizes those immigrants, whether from Haiti or other parts of the world, who are rejected from the Quebec social circles.
The narrative takes place in Montreal on a very cold winter day. The cold, the snow and the frozen winds are depicted as predatory monsters “that grab you by the throat” and “force you to bend, to quiver, to grind your teeth” (Étienne, 2007: 27; see note 1). While Montreal residents are cozily locked
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Citation: Grossman, Simone. "Vous n'êtes pas seul". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 March 2018 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=35844, accessed 22 November 2024.]
