We know Jean Sioui for many reasons: his poetry, first of all, award-winning and prolific, his commitment to young indigenous writers and, also, his publishing house Hannenorak, which he co-founded with his third son, Daniel. He presents himself to us today through the narrative, making it appear Yändata ‘. Eternity at the end of my street, notebook of memories embalming the land of his youth and the memory of the people who populated it.
He tells us bluntly: “Everything is true in what I write. “Moreover, the tone of his narration, calm and stripped of all lyricism, does not fail to confirm that the author will play fair:” I was born in a village that has been assigned to us. A yändata ‘populated by trees without branches. I am roots in this village. “
Above all, the writer is nestled in the hollow of happy memories, finding the Wendake of his childhood that he takes pleasure in reviving: “The magnificent smells of wood, varnish, sinew and dung of the milkman’s horse filled nostrils, which never complained. The air was intoxicated with a world that crisscrossed in the comings and goings of a small street that only named its people. “
Precisely, this yändata ‘- this village – is first and foremost about people. Many will parade for us, in the luminous orb of sunny days, animated by the tender and empathetic feather of Sioui. Without exaggeratingly magnifying it, he reweaves the quilt of this company and builds a human mythology. Often, in addition to being endearing, his stories are funny: “Then the house of my uncle the barber, who cut our hair too often. My brother and I were always clean-cut. Twenty-five cents a week. My uncle had to be supported, my mother said. “
The bitterness caused by white silliness rarely comes to the fore in the narratives, but it would have been difficult to pass over in silence. With a remarkable sense of the formula and a good dose of irony, the author condemns colonization and its consequences, still so vivid centuries later: “Many steps towards knowledge of a distorted history and a religion. imposed that were to lead me to the seminary. I’ve never been there. I got lost on the way. Like the colonizers. “
His project is humanist, and because large sections of great history have so long been withdrawn from this humanity, it should be reviewed: “History needs to be corrected. ” His Yändata. Eternity at the end of my street, by presenting a land quivering with life and actors who take names and faces, is part of this important process of rewriting. Dropped by nostalgia, the stories of Jean Sioui nonetheless persist on this path which promises, for the Wendat author and his community, a radiance worthy of its splendor: “Today, my village offers itself to the map of the world. wrinkles are called culture. “