The Visions and Revelations of St Louis the Métis

Marguerite Andersen is a professor of French Studies at the University
of Guelph. She is the author of Courts métrages et instantanés and La
Soupe.

David Day is a poet, novelist, and natural historian whose works for
both children and adults have been translated into 14 languages. In this
bilingual volume, he attempts to shed more light on Louis Riel, the
charismatic 19th-century visionary and martyr.

This book features Day’s English versions of Riel’s poems. Day
believes that Riel, as a poet, was inspired by “the dual heritage of
the Métis people: the biblical Christian and the pagan Indian.” Also
included in the volume are excerpts from Riel’s diary, including the
very moving entries he wrote in prison while awaiting death. Day calls
his texts “found poems,” and found they were, both in the original
texts and in their translations by Thomas Flanagan. Informative
footnotes accompany some of the poems.

Although this attractively designed collection “does not make any
major scholarly claims,” it will nevertheless be of great interest to
historians and general readers alike.