Maria Chapdelaine

In the backwoods of Quebec’s Lac Saint-Jean country, a young farm woman must decide what kind of life she wants, and with whom. Three men are drawn to Maria: François Paradis, the free-roaming woodsman she loves; a suitor who offers escape to the bright cities of the United States; and a neighboring farmer bound to the same hard land she was born on. When grief upends her hopes, the choice becomes a question about duty, memory, and the deep pull of home. Hémon, a French journalist who had labored on a Quebec farm himself, wrote with plain tenderness, and the book became a beloved classic of French-Canadian literature. This edition offers the W.H. Blake English translation. Free to download as a PDF and EPUB.