Bliss - by Olivier Choiniére (Paperback)

About the Book

Previously published in English in 2008 by Nick Hern Books.

Book Synopsis

Welcome to Wal-Mart. On their break, a cashier and her fellow workers flick through celebrity gossip magazines.

'See you Later, Celine, ' says a headline. What's wrong with Celine? Why is she turning her back on her glamorous public life, her adoring fans? And how is her story connected to the story of an unknown woman on the facing page? It's not. Until the Oracle intervenes.

This wild and slippery fantasy from French-Canadian writer Olivier Choinière explores our insatiable appetite for private lives made public. In a new translation by Caryl Churchill, Bliss is "a clever, disturbing piece about the damage done by vicarious living" (Financial Times).

Oliver Choinière founded the L'ACTIVITÉ Theatre Company in 2000 for which he has written and directed extensively. His French-language translations of English plays include Les Points Tournants (Passing Places) by Stephen Greenhorn and Road by Jim Cartwright.

Caryl Churchill has written for the stage, television and radio. A renowned and prolific playwright, her plays include Cloud Nine, Top Girls, Far Away, Drunk Enough to Say I Love You?, Bliss, Love and Information, Mad Forest and A Number. In 2002, she received the Obie Lifetime Achievement Award and 2010, she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame.

Review Quotes

"A small bombshell has arrived from Montreal: an attack by Olivier Choiniere, translated by Caryl Churchill, on what Robert Hughes once termed "the psychotic cult of celebrity." -- Michael Billington, The Guardian

"A clever, disturbing piece about the damage done by vicarious living." -- Sarah Hemming, Financial Times

About the Author

Olivier Choiniére graduated from the National School of Canada in 1996 with a degree in playwriting. He has written 20 plays in his native Quebecois and translated authors such as Mark O'Rowe. In 2001 he won the Canada Council's Future Generations Millennium Prize. CARYL CHURCHILL's plays include "Cloud Nine" (revived in 2007 to huge acclaim at the Almeida, London), "Top Girls", "Serious Money", "The Skriker", "Blue Heart", "Far Away" and "A Number". Most are published by NHB.