Bienvenue à Québec

Bienvenue à Québec
Bienvenue à Québec

Tuesday, June 24, 2014

Promenades Littéraires

One of my guilty pleasures in Québec City is to go on a promenade littéraire - a literary walk through the streets of Vieux Québec where we visit authors' famous haunts, characters' houses and view the often overlooked corners of the city, as well as the grandiose vistas, through the eyes of Québec's literary icons. Unfortunately, I couldn't entice any students to go with me this year, but I was in heaven as we walked the streets of la Haute Ville in the footsteps of Anne Hébert, one of Québec's grandes dames of the novel. Having read and studied several of Hébert's novels when I was an undergraduate student at the University of Alberta and seen one of the film adaptations of her novel Kamouraska, this was a big thrill for me. The weather was wonderful and the guide was absolutely mesmorizing as she shared her passion for the literature with us. Walking through the winding cobblestone streets and stopping to read passages aloud under the very window that the character of Elisabeth D’Aulnières sat at the death bed of her husband at the beginning of the novel, was like stepping back in time for me. We walked along les remparts - the old walls of the city - for a spectacular view of the Laurentian mountains, the St. Lawrence River and the wonders of la ville de Québec! I now feel like picking up her books again and diving into them, with my mind still wandering the streets of Vieux Québec...

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