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W. Donald Wilson and Paul G. Socken’s translation of Aaron, by Québécois author Yves Thériault, makes this fine novel available in English for the first time.
An exploration of “otherness,” the story centres on Moishe, an Orthodox Jew and refugee from Russia, who is raising his grandson, Aaron, alone in Montreal, following the deaths of Aaron’s parents. Poverty-stricken, Moshe works as a tailor, maintains his strict adherence to Orthodoxy, and educates Aaron to follow in his path. Aaron becomes increasingly estranged from his grandfather’s ways, however, and his meeting with the militantly secular Jewish girl Viedna confirms his decision to embrace modernity, secularism, and materialism and to reject his faith entirely. The story portrays a tragically polarized situation in which neither side is able to communicate or to build an alternative world view that incorporates both tradition and modernity. Possibly Thériault’s finest novel, Aaron is a parable of our modern world and a poignant cautionary tale.
Yves Thériault (1915-1983) was one of Quebec’s most prolific writers: he wrote more than forty volumes of novels and short stories as well as children’s books and more than 1,200 scripts for radio plays and others for television. His works are translated into twenty languages and won many literary awards, including the Governor General’s Award in 1960.
|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, by Denyse Baillargeon (WLU Press, 2009) and, with Paul G. Socken, of Aaron: A Novel, by Yves Thériault (WLU Press, 2007).
| Paul G. Socken has been on the faculty of University of Waterloo for thirty-three years. He is a former chair of the Department of French Studies and is the author of seven books and many scholarly articles published in France, Canada, and the United States. His area of specialization is French-Canadian literature.