In the collection of interviews To our daughters, the author Michèle Plomer wanted to talk about transmission and sorority with a dozen women with rich backgrounds. Result: it is a very substantial book that the one we knew with the romantic trilogy offers us. dragonville and autofiction books like Spark and dress the heart.
Posted at 12:00 p.m.
Already, the choice of interviewees suggests depth in thinking and areas of expertise. From author Joséphine Bacon to feminist activist Marjorie Villefranche, via poet Denise Desautels, painter Marion Wagschal and playwright Brigitte Haentjens, Michèle Plomer gives voice to a whole diversity of voices.
In addition to the magnificent photos of Justine Latour in which the guests reveal a little of their humanity, the author explains the reasons for her choices in the introduction to each interview. Yvette Bonny, for example, a pediatrician-hematologist of Haitian origin, performed the first bone marrow transplant on a child in Quebec. Also, Michèle Plomer never hesitates to get involved, telling for example how much the work of Marie-Claire Blais or Nicole Brossard has always inhabited her, or how the simple presence of Manon Barbeau or Paule Baillargeon l ‘impressed.
We also feel in each interview the admiration that Michèle Plomer has for these exceptional women, but also her desire to get to the bottom of things with them.
The idea of the book is to get everyone to talk about the journey through different themes. Marriage, sexuality, creation, money, work, motherhood, immigration, the range of topics covered is vast, and the plurality of experiences told allows you to touch on many aspects of life.
Whether it’s the bookseller Jeanne Lemire, who speaks of benevolence in business; community worker Yasmina Choukari, who discusses religion and the blind spots of intersectionality; Marion Wagschal, who speaks out on financial independence; or Paule Baillargeon, who talks about anger as a driving force, even the densest thoughts are embodied, and clearly the fruit of a constant and intimate evolution.
Bound by solidarity
In the background of this book, which gives a voice to women whose common point is certainly their free and independent spirit, emerges female solidarity, which has been at the source of the work and the life of the majority of them. , and the rest of the world. How to show autonomy and self-esteem to young women? wonders Michèle Plomer. The responses are numerous and generous, but without judgement, because above all we feel great confidence in the new generations.
But since this book is one of transmission, openness and dialogue, what a good idea it would be to put it in the hands of young women, but also of men, so that these paths traveled, sometimes in adversity, help to understand what is behind it and be an inspiration and a lever towards more equality and understanding.
In any case, here are 12 voices, wise, but not so wise either, which pull us upwards, avoid intellectual shortcuts and favor discussion over confrontation. One of the many good reasons to listen to them.
To our daughters in a few quotes
I would say to young women that they have as much right to self-realization first as their partner has the right. It is often the realization that brings satisfaction, and the satisfactions that bring a little joy, and a lot of satisfactions and joys that bring happiness.
Manon Barbeau
I have always said: freedom before love.
Paule Baillargeon
As long as we can love, think, walk, look, appreciate what our senses capture of the living things around us and within us, aging is a form of accomplishment and a gentle relationship with time.
Nicole Brossard
Me, every day, I am who I have to be in my day. And then we’ll see.
Josephine Bacon
Women, and especially women artists, have so many doubts about the value and quality of what they do. This uncertainty is a huge obstacle that I have to overcome every day and that I face by showing up daily in my studio.
Marion Wagschal
The battle is a bit of women’s history, and it’s very much the history of black women.
Marjorie Villefranche
The complicity between women sets in quickly, is immediately great, especially when we are in the process of addressing essential questions that affect what is both deep and fragile in us.
Denise Desautels
To our daughters
Michele Plomer and Justine Latour
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321 pages