The Setting Lake Sun

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.

J.R. Léveillé, a poet, novelist, and journalist with Radio-Canada
national television, is well known for his work in the fields of
Franco-Manitoban and Western-Canadian literature. The Setting Lake Sun,
the English-language translation of his first novel, Le soleil du lac
qui se couche (Winnipeg, Йditions du Blé, 2001), is a love story
featuring Angиle, a Métis architecture student, and Uemo, a Japanese
poet living in Northern Manitoba. The novel’s structure—164 short
numbered passages—creates the impression of poetry, as does the
cadence of Léveillé’s prose. Although this structure is somewhat
irritating, interrupting as it does the narrative flow, it succeeds in
conveying the author’s message that although love exists, each of us
is essentially alone. In its depiction of Japanese-Canadian,
English-Canadian, and Métis cultures, The Setting Lake Sun provides a
document of the new Canada.