Latest news with #OneeReadCanada
CBC
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
Montreal writer Chris Bergeron highlights the power of transgender storytelling as revolutionary
Social Sharing Set in Montreal in 2050, Valid is an eight-hour monologue by Christelle, a trans woman who is forced to live as a man to stay alive. At 70-years-old, she's held captive by an AI and sets off on her own revolution — a revelation of her true self. Written by Montreal writer Chris Bergeron and translated by Natalia Hero, Valid was chosen for the One eRead Canada campaign by The Canadian Urban Libraries Council. This means that through the month of this past April, the novel was available in both e-book and audiobook formats in English and French to all patrons of participating libraries. For Bergeron, who first published the novel in French in 2021, this recognition is all the more important in the current political climate. "The conversation around queer literature in libraries and the presence that it should or shouldn't have in public libraries wasn't as fraught with very difficult debates as it is today," said Bergeron on Bookends with Mattea Roach. "The fact that librarians from across the country decided to give a nod to my book and share it to their audiences and their communities is a great sign of open mindedness and it reminds me of what this country is about." She joined Roach to discuss the inspiration behind her novel, her portrayal of the city of Montreal and her approach to trans revolution. Mattea Roach: Christelle is a 70-year-old trans woman who is in a situation where she's forced to live as a man. What are the circumstances that have led her to closet herself and live as Christian when we first meet her? Chris Bergeron: One of the things I was noticing during the pandemic when I was writing most of the book, was that people were talking about the safety and the well-being of a majority of people and not so much about the particulars in terms of health. So, I imagined if we lived in a world that went from crisis to crisis or at least if that was the public message. The rights and the needs of minority groups would be ignored. In fact, it's what we are seeing today as political discourse. It's almost a way to get elected today. So in that world, in that extrapolation of the world we're seeing today, I imagine a world where essentially not only were rights not validated, but actually removed. Anything that stood out of this average or common point of view of what should be a perfect citizen would be erased. In order to survive and actually be on the good side of whatever authority is in the book, my character has to detransition. It's something that exists in today's world — for example, somebody who is trans right now living in Russia, where it's essentially been criminalized to be trans. It's a reality that has existed in the past and exists today and will probably continue to exist in the future. Valid is written in this monologue style where most of it is essentially your main character, Christelle, telling her life story from her childhood into her adulthood as now, an elderly closeted trans woman. Why did you choose to craft the narrative in this way? It comes back to how the book actually started. I was giving and I still give talks across the country talking about what it's like to be trans and what that experience is and what the experience is at work and some of the challenges I faced, all of that. My publisher actually came to one of these talks and we chatted after and said, "Oh, you should write a book about all that." So I started with this autobiography and very quickly realized that that book had been written before: the story of a trans person and a coming of age story, how I came out of the closet and this and that. And I thought, "What's the point of that book if it's been done before?" I figured that it would be more interesting if I used the book as an opportunity to exercise my fears and tackle the big question, which is how will I age and is there a possibility of a happy old age for a trans person when the world is going to hell? How will I age and is there a possibility of a happy old age for a trans person when the world is going to hell? - Chris Bergeron That's where I thought I might have something new here with this notion of dystopian autofiction. Projecting myself into the future and asking myself how would I react? And obviously, I position myself as a coward because very few of us are actual heroes. The city of Montreal feels to me like a character in this story. You've actually said that you feel that Montreal is a transgender city, which is really interesting. What did you mean by that? First of all, nobody can figure out what it is. It's French. It's a large French metropolis. But then it's got 800,000 anglophones. On top of that, it has another third of the population that comes from elsewhere in the world, first or second generation immigrants. Some would say it's a high tech hub where there's a lot of AI labs and aviation research, but then it's also one of the poorest places in Canada — and it's all these things at the same time. Of course, the fact that it's always a giant construction site. It's literally always transitioning. It's always going from one identity to another. I saw it when it was back in the 90s, an indie, quiet town with a lot of artists. And then it became sort of a revolutionary left wing hub back when we had the carrés rouges. So it's always trying to be something it's not and it can't quite figure out what it is. It's always a bit of a loser compared to all the other cities — and that also makes it a bit trans. We're the sort of eternal teenager with gender issues and identity issues that are like, what am I? Who am I? Who am I today? And there'll probably never be an answer to that question, which is wonderful. We reach this breaking point at the end of your novel, where it becomes a novel about revolution. What does revolution mean for you as a trans person in 2025? Resist and resist by existing is the message. Using words, using our stories and telling our stories, no matter the risk, because the risk is going to be there. The system collapses under the weight of the words of people who are in marginalized communities. - Chris Bergeron The system collapses under the weight of the words of people who are in marginalized communities. In my book, that's how the revolution happened. People telling their stories to this AI who can't process these things. I think today, our words are just as powerful.
CBC
17-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
Mattea Roach to host digital book club connecting readers across Canada
Social Sharing The Canadian Urban Libraries Council has selected Chris Bergeron's novel Valid, translated by Natalia Hero for the One eRead Canada campaign throughout the month of April. Valid is a work of dystopian autofiction that explores the story of one trans woman leading a revolution in a "disturbingly transfigured" future Montreal. As part of the campaign, Valid is available in both e-book and audiobook formats in English and French to all patrons of participating libraries. Readers are able to access the book immediately without waitlists or holds. Those with print disabilities can also find Valid in accessible formats on both the CELA and NNELS websites. To celebrate, Bergeron will partake in English and French virtual book club events. The English event will be hosted by Mattea Roach and recorded for a future episode of Bookends. It will take place on April 23 at 7:00 p.m. ET. Registration details can be found here. The French event will be on April 24 at 7:00 p.m. ET, hosted by Radio-Canada's Katerine Verebely. The details are here. S et in Montreal in 2050, Valid is an eight-hour monologue by Christelle, a trans woman who is forced to live as a man to stay alive. At 70-years-old, she's held captive by an AI and sets off on her own revolution — a revelation of her true self. Bergeron is a Montreal writer who currently works at Cossette, a global marketing agency. She previously ran the culture magazine Voir. Hero, the French-to-English translator of Valid, is based in Montreal as well. Her short fiction has been published in Mag, Shabby Doll House, Cosmonauts Avenue and The Temz Review. Her debut novel, Hum, was published in 2018.
