Spring Tides

"Poulin is a master of imagery and dialogue: They rest like froth on top of something much more murky and morose: an underlying fear of emptiness."- The Silhouette Peacefully employed on an uninhabited island, a translator of comic strips (codename Teddy Bear) lives in the company of his dictionaries, his marauding cat, Matousalem, and his tennis ball machine (the Prince). Convinced that the translator's happiness is in jeopardy, his boss helicopters in a few solitude-seeking companions-the beautiful and elusive Marie with her flirtatious cat Moustache; the seductive nudist, Featherhead; Professor Moccasin, the half-deaf comic strip scholar; the moody and contradictory Author; the Ordinary Man; and the Organizer, sent to "sensitize the population." As the spring tides drag ocean debris onto the shore, Teddy Bear and his companions seek out their own solitudes in this hilarious philosophical fable. Jacques Poulin 's novels include Volkswagen Blues (a finalist for Canada Reads 2005) and La tournee d'automne ( Autumn Rounds ). Poulin received the 1978 Governor General's Award for Les Grandes Marees ( Spring Tides ) and the Molson Prize for lifetime artistic contribution in 1990 and 2000. He lives in Quebec.

Born in Saint-Gédéon-de-Beauce, Jacques Poulin is the author of fourteen novels. Among his many honors are the Governor General's Award, the Molson Prize in the Arts, the Gilles-Corbeil Prize, and the France-Québec Prize. He lives in Québec City.

Sheila Fischman has published more than 125 translations of contemporary French-Canadian. Fischman was named to the Order of Canada in 2002 and to the Ordre national du Québec in 2008; in the same year she received the Molson Prize in the Arts.