A Suit of Light: A Novel

by Anne Hébert, Sheila Fischman (Translation)

Anne Hébert's final novel, originally published in French as Un Habit de lumière, is a story of dangerous dreams come true.

Rose-Alba Almevida, her husband Pedro, and her son Miguel live by modest means in a Paris apartment, but each, in their way, dreams of returning home to Spain to reclaim the honor and identity stripped of them by the immigrant struggle. Yet, where Pedro plans and saves for a vineyard plot to which he can retire, Rose-Alba and Miguel have vastly different dreams. For them Spain is an emotional state, where impulse and instinct prevail, where passions are untempered by foreign, unfamiliar values. When a mysterious stranger enters their lives and offers all that Rose-Alba and Miguel seek, the Almevida family is torn violently apart and their innocent dreams become the barbed weapons of their own destruction.

Genres: Fiction, Canadian Literature

106 pages, Hardcover

Published September 1, 2000

About the author

Anne Hébert was a Canadian author and poet. She won Canada's top literary honor, the Governor General's Award, three times, twice for fiction and once for poetry.

Reviews

[Nathaniel]

Maybe it’s the translation. Maybe it’s just not a good book. Regardless, I didn’t enjoy my time with this…and at 106 pages it really had to be really good or not good at all. There’s hardly ever an inbetween with a book like this.

[Justine Grondin · Rating 4 out of 5]

la dernière phrase de Miguel m’a brisé le coeur.

“Quelqu’un de sacré, que je ne connais pas encore, me prépare en secret, au milieu des vagues et des frissons gris, un habit de lumière pour quand je serai arrivé parmi les morts.”

[Martine Savard · Rating 3 out of 5]

En fait je mettrais 4 étoiles pour l’écriture mais la trame romanesque m’a semblé usée, trop souvent abordée.

[Sylvie Flament · Rating 4 out of 5]

Très belle écriture. Fulgurant comme la corrida!

[Rebekah · Rating 1 out of 5]

J’ai lu ceci pendant mon bac - je ne l’ai pas aimé du tout.

[Mindy Gough · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dark. No light. No redemption.

[Felix L.G · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. Will revisit.