Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette's novel Suzanne will be defended by Yanic Truesdale on Canada Reads 2019. Suzanne was translated by Rhonda Mullins.

The 2019 debates are happening March 25-28, 2019 and will be hosted by Ali Hassan.

Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette is a Montreal-based novelist, screenwriter and director. Throughout her career, she has worked in various media, directing several award winning documentary features. She has also directed two fiction features: Le Ring and Inch'allah, which received the Fipresci Prize in Berlin. As a young adult, Barbeau-Lavalette spent time living and studying in the West Bank. She revisited this scene in her acclaimed sophomore fiction feature film Inch'Allah.

Her bestselling novel La femme qui fuit — inspired by her own grandmother's life as an artist — was later translated into English and titled Suzanne. It won the Prix des libraires du Québec and was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for French-language fiction. Her other books include Je Voudrais Qu'on M'efface and Embrasser Yasser Arafat. ​

"Ideas don't come from somewhere. Ideas are created, gradually take shape, get distorted, then reconstruct themselves. An idea is a complex, fascinating process that comes from everywhere and nowhere."

"I try to understand who I am and where I come from so that I can be my true self. And what I'm trying to pull concerns me alone — I'm a secretive person."