Canada (novel)

Canada (American Original title: Canada) is a novel by the American author and Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Ford in 2012 The original edition translated Frank Heibert into German..

Content

In the first part of the novel, set in the early 1960s in Great Falls ( Montana), experienced the fifteen- year-old Dell Parsons, as his civil parents to bank robbers. After the arrest of his parents are he and his twin sister Bernese overnight alone. The family is destroyed, ruined the youth of the siblings. While Berner simply runs away, Dell is through the assistance of his mother's girlfriend refuge in the Canadian prairies.

In the second part of the novel Dell is torn from his childhood and youth, and faced with growing up. This is done under the care of Arthur Remlinger, a man with good manners but a criminal past. The growth of the protagonist is henceforth marked by sadness, disillusionment, powerlessness and the whims of fate. An atmosphere of threat and fear characterizes Dell's existence. He witnesses a series of murders, escapes the bleakness of the Canadian province of and looks as husband and retired literature teacher back on these years. He meets his twin sister, who has not managed in contrast to himself, to escape her fate outsider.

Genesis

In 1989, Richard Ford took notes on this story, which he kept for fear of fires in the freezer of his refrigerator in his wooden house. Regularly he extended his records when he was traveling in Montana or in Saskatchewan, Canada. Two years of preparation and two years of writing, followed by a year of Lektorierens preceded the publication.

Style

The narrator, who has since reorganized his life probably looks, fifty years later back to the fateful time of his adolescence. Ford's writing style is characterized by expressive figures of speech and a precise, almost naturalistic descriptions of the characters, landscapes and animals.

Reception

Although the novel contains elements of a detective novel, it is attributed to the development of novels in the reception. The author more interested in the consequences than the event itself: How does the protagonist deal with injuries, as he seeks his life and survival? The answer is given by the author in the final movements of his novel: "I just know that you have better chances in life - better chances of survival - if you can cope well with losses; if you manage not to get to be a cynic. The much- noted work of Richard Ford's received in the reception of German literary criticism almost exclusively positive reviews. Verena Auffermann writes in Cicero, the work belongs to the repertoire of Great American legends and Christian Repentance calls the author in Spiegel Online in connection with this novel " one of the last great American storyteller ." Wolfgang Schneider praises in dRadio culture on the precise representation of man. People would put so vividly on the narrative stage, that it was a pleasure to read. Criticizes Wolfgang Schneider of the partially clichéd fate incantations in which Ford promulgated.

The novel was awarded the 2013 Prix Femina Etranger.