La Sagouine.

Margaret Conrad is a history professor at Acadia University and editor
of They Planted Well: New England Planters in Maritime Canada.

Antonine Maillet’s La Sagouine became an instant classic when it was first published in French in 1971. Framed as the musings of a 72-year-old washerwoman, mother of 12 children, and former part-time prostitute, it gave cheeky voice to the Acadian perspective on the world. The play on which the book was based has brought kudos to Viola Legère, who excelled in the role in both French and English, and the La Sagouine theme park located in Bouctouche, New Brunswick, attracts thousands of visitors a year. Along with her equally inventive works Pelagie-la-Charette and Don l’ Original, La Sagouine brought Maillet national and international recognition, including the prestigious French Prix Goncourt.

It is difficult to imagine a more difficult task than translating La Sagouine. Common sense suggests that it cannot be done because much of the book’s charm is based on the Acadian dialect in which La Sagouine’s monologue is delivered. Nevertheless, the linguistically challenged among us welcome this new translation so that another generation of English-language readers can engage La Sagouine’s thinking on such matters as life and death, lotteries, fortune-telling, the Church, and the census. Inevitably, Wayne Grady’s translation lacks the sparkle of the Maillet’s original text or of Legère’s dramatic rendering, but the narrative offers ample testimony to the well-honed skills of an award-winning translator.

Regrettably, this edition lacks an introduction outlining in more detail than the fly-leaf notes can do the impact of La Sagouine, the career of its author, and the challenges of translating such an iconic work three decades after its first appearance. Since this volume is destined to find its way into a great many Canadian classrooms, students in particular are not well-served by this omission.