English Will Follow

Dear readers,

You might have ended up on this blog while looking for information about me or my books. As you may have noticed, I have not been updating this blog for the last few years. And in any case, all the other posts are in French, the language in which I have been publishing articles in newspapers and magazines as a journalist, and in which my nonfiction books have originally been published.

Since some of my work is now available in English and there is more to come, I feel it is relevant to post a few things about myself and my books over here.

Let's start with an updated bio (yes, in third person).

Bio

Frédérick Lavoie is a Francophone nonfiction writer and freelance foreign correspondent, born in Chicoutimi, Canada, in 1983. He has lived in Russia, in India and in the United States and has reported from more than 30 countries for various Canadian and European news outlets. 

 credit: Jasmin Lavoie

He is the author of four nonfiction books: Allers simples: Aventures journalistiques en Post-Soviétie (La Peuplade, 2012), about his years of reporting and travels in Russia and other former republics of the Soviet Union; For Want of a Fir Tree: Ukraine Undone (Linda Leith Publishing, 2018, translated by Donald Winkler from the original French Ukraine à fragmentation, La Peuplade 2015), in which he tells a four-year-old child he saw lying in his coffin in Ukraine in 2015 about the sequence of events that led his country to war and him to his death; Orwell in Cuba: How 1984 came to be published in Castro’s Twilight (Talonbooks, May 2020, translated by Donald Winkler from the original French Avant l'après: Voyages à Cuba avec George Orwell, La Peuplade, 2018), a personal account of contemporary Cuba at a pivotal point of its history, intertwined with an investigation on how and why a state-run publishing house came to release a new translation of George Orwell's iconic anti-totalitarian novel "Nineteen-Eighty-Four," formerly taboo, in the year 2016; and Frères amis, frères ennemis: Correspondances entre l'Inde et le Pakistan (Somme toute, 2018), an epistolary exchange between India and Pakistan with his brother Jasmin, then a correspondent in Islamadad while he was based in Mumbai.

His next book will be a journalistic account of the many challenges and opportunities related to water in Bangladesh, while also being an analysis of the foundations of any such journalistic endeavour.

In 2018, Frédérick Lavoie received the Governor General’s Literary Award for French Nonfiction for Avant l'après: Voyages à Cuba avec George Orwell. 

He currently divides his time between Mumbai and Montréal.

Books available in English

Here are more details my two books translated into English.

For Want of a Fir Tree: Ukraine Undone (Linda Leith Publishing, september 2018, translation by Donald Winkler)

How can a country at peace suddenly be plunged into war? What compels hitherto peaceable citizens to take up arms and kill one another? In For Want of a Fir Tree: Ukraine Undone, Frédérick Lavoie tells Artyom, a four-year-old child he saw lying in his little blue coffin on a January afternoon in 2015, about the sequence of events that led to his death. In doing so, and in travelling the country from one side to the other, talking to people from all walks of life in both camps, Lavoie tells a compelling story of a land drawn into conflict through misadventure, misjudgment, mistrust, and a legacy of ancient historical resentments with a tenacious hold on their populations. It is a cautionary tale whose truths and whose lessons resonate far beyond these specific events, these particular borders.

Orwell in Cuba: How 1984 Came to Be Published in Castro's Twilight (Talonbooks, May-June 2020, translation by Donald Winkler)

Orwell in Cuba: How '1984' Came to Be Published in Castro's Twilight is a personal account of contemporary Cuba at a pivotal point in its history, with the Castro brothers passing power on to a new generation. We discover Cuba through the adventures, inquiries, and encounters of a Canadian journalist and writer trying to make sense of the current climate in Cuba and of how Cubans feel about the past, present, and future of their island. "Orwell in Cuba" is also akin to a detective story, as the author investigates how and why a state-run publishing house came to release a new translation of George Orwell's iconic anti-totalitarian novel Nineteen-Eighty-Four, formerly taboo, in the year 2016. These two quests are intertwined in the book, giving the reader an unusual experience: that of following a suspenseful trail while at the same time becoming increasingly familiar with the Cuban people's relationship to the regime, and absorbing a wealth of information as to how they succeed in coping with the island's often challenging living conditions.

Other activities

Credit: Tata LitLive! (November 2019, Mumbai, India)

Over the years, I have often been invited to bookfairs and literary festivals, or to give talks in universities, colleges, bookstores, libraries and other institutions in Canada, India, Bangladesh, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Russia and Cuba. I speak French, English and Russian fluently. If you would like to get in touch regarding events, or just want to send comments about my work, feel free to get in touch with me.