When Water Became Blue

Born in 1972, and named an Artist for Peace in 2012, Anaïs Barbeau Lavalette has directed several award-winning documentary features. She also directed two fiction features: Le Ring (2008) and Inch’allah (2012), which received the Fipresci Prize in Berlin. She is the author of the travelogue Embrasser Yasser Arafat (2011) and the novel Je voudrais qu’on m’efface (Neighbourhood Watch) and the international bestseller Le femme qui fuit (Suzanne), winner of the Prix des libraires du Quebec, Prix France-Quebec, Prix de la Ville de Montreal, and shortlisted for the Best Translated Book Award and Canada Reads.Rhonda Mullins is a Montreal-based translator who has translated many books from French into English, including Jocelyne Saucier’s And Miles To Go Before I Sleep, Gregoire Courtois’ The Laws of the Skies, Dominique Fortier’s Paper Houses, and Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette’s Suzanne. She is a seven-time finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation, winning the award in 2015 for her translation of Jocelyne Saucier’s Twenty-One Cardinals. Novels she has translated were contenders for CBC Canada Reads in 2015 and 2019 and one was a finalist for the 2018 Best Translated Book Award. Mullins was the inaugural literary translator in residence at Concordia University in 2018. She has been a mentor to emerging translators in the Banff International Literary Translation Program.

'The structure of Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette’s When Water Became Blue is a masterclass in time travel.' – Sharon Morrisey, Montreal Review of Books '[I]n Barbeau-Lavalette’s ... work, simple and vital questions emerge – both personally and politically relevant. How do we sustain ourselves when we lack what is essential to our survival, and can we flourish in times of great change?' – Marcie McCauley, World Liturature Today'When Water Became Blue is a sparse yet powerful exploration of the complexity of female desire and how it is articulated in art and nature. It beautifully and cautiously relates the entrapments of contemporary life, the necessity of escape, and the enduring tensions between practicality and passion.' – Stacey May Fowles, Literary Review of Canada'About an ephemeral maritime love as rare and precious, and somehow still as reflective of ubiquitous potentiality, as the color blue once was, When Water Became Blue is a lush, intoxicating novel.' – Michelle Anne Schingler, Foreword Reviews ★ STARRED REVIEW'A praise of the present moment, full of sensations and sensuality, When Water became Blue is a carnal and fervent journey, where every detail of a fleeting and profound love — yes, it can be possible — is magnified.' – La PressePraise for To the Forest:'Covering a period of grief, growth, and rebirth, To the Forest is an exquisite novel that revels in wild places.' – Michelle Anne Schingler, Foreword Reviews'During a time of climate change and viruses, Barbeau-Lavalette fittingly honours the interconnectedness of all life on the planet.'  – Janet Pollock Millar, Room Magazine