Born during the Great Depression, Jean-Claude Morel is an Everyman, an ordinary Montreal construction worker who has built the city with his own hands, digging its metro, creating islands, and weaving expressways through the downtown core. But the progress has come at a cost: neighbourhoods have been razed, streets wiped off the map, and the Morel family expropriated.

Teeming with life, Morel uncovers a story of Montreal that has been buried under years of glitzy urban renewal and modernization. This intricately constructed literary novel is a profoundly human portrait of one man and his time, a monument to a city, and a toast to days gone by. (From Baraka Books)

Morel is on the shortlist for the 2024 French-to-English translation Governor General's Award.

Maxime Raymond Bock is a Montreal-based writer. His books include the French short story collection Atavisms, which won the Prix Adrienne-Choquette, and the novella Baloney. Morel was nominated for the Prix des libraires, Prix littéraire des collégiens, Grand Prix du livre de Montréal, Prix Senghor and the Rendez-vous du premier roman.

Melissa Bull is an editor, writer and translator based in Montreal. Her books include the poetry collection Rue and the fiction collection The Knockoff Eclipse. She translated Pascale Rafie's play The Baklawa Recipe, Nelly Arcan's collection Burqa of Skin and Marie-Sissi Labrèche's novel Borderline.