The CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) Books finally announced the winner of Canada Reads 2024 last week.
On the final day of debates, The Future by Catherine Leroux won in a 4-1 vote on March 7th. Heather O’Neill championed the book, which was translated into English from French by Susan Ouriou.
The Future is an alternative history fiction novel set in a world where the French never surrendered the city of Detroit. The city suffers from racial and economic injustice, poverty, pollution, and violence.
Gloria moves into the city looking for her mission granddaughters. There, she explores the nearby woods where the city’s abandoned children have created their own society.
This year’s Canada Reads theme was “one book to carry us forward”. Heather O’Neill argued that The Future “speaks of hope in a world that’s falling apart.”
About the book, O’Neill highlights that Leroux has reinvented the dystopian genre. Instead of the typical doom and gloom, “She [Leroux] reverses the dystopian genre and makes it into the idea that disaster can actually herald change.”
If you haven’t read The Future yet, perhaps it can give you a different perspective on the idea of disaster, change, and community. In today’s world, we all could use a little bit of hope.
If you want more Canadian books to add to your reading list, check out the other contenders of Canada Reads 2024.
For more Canadian book reviews and recommendations, check out my blog.
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