The Tin Flute
CBC Books | CBC | Posted: February 14, 2017 3:44 PM | Last Updated: May 29, 2017
Gabrielle Roy, translated by Alan Brown
The Tin Flute, Gabrielle Roy's first novel, is a classic of Canadian fiction. Imbued with Roy's unique brand of compassion and compelling understanding, this moving story focuses on a family in the Saint-Henri slums of Montreal, its struggles to overcome poverty and ignorance, and its search for love.
An affecting story of familial tenderness, sacrifice, and survival during the Second World War, The Tin Flute won both the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction in 1947 and the Prix Fémina of France. The novel was made into a critically acclaimed motion picture in 1983. (From New Canadian Library)
From the book
Toward noon, Florentine had taken to watching out for the young man who, yesterday, while seeming to joke around, had let her know he found her pretty. The fever of the bazaar rose in her blood, a kind of jangled nervousness mingled with the vague feeling that one day in this teeming store things would come to a halt and her life would find its goal. It never occurred to her to think she could meet her destiny anywhere but here, in the overpowering smell of caramel, before the great mirrors hung on the wall with their narrow strips of gummed paper announcing the day's menu, to the summary clacking of the cash register, the very voice of her impatience. Everything in the place summed up for her the hasty, hectic poverty of her whole life here in St. Henri.
From The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy, translated by Alan Brown ©1945. Translation Allan Brown ©1980. Published by New Canadian Library.