Guano - by Louis Carmain (Paperback)

About the Book

Bartleby the Scrivener meets Catch-22 in this charmingly sardonic tale of love, war, and fertilizer.

Book Synopsis

It's 1862, and Spain is a little rueful about letting Peru have their independence. Or, more importantly, letting Peru have the guano--"white gold"--on the Chincha Islands. Simón is the ship's recorder on a scientific--okay, military--expedition when he meets, in Callao, the mysterious Montse. She asks of him only that he write her letters. Which he utterly fails to do. As military tensions escalate, so does Simón's unabated lust for Montse -- even if he can't bring himself to do anything about it.

Louis Carmain lives in Gatineau, Quebec. Guano, his first novel, received the prestigious Prix littéraire des collégiens.

Rhonda Mullins's translation of Jocelyne Saucier's And the Birds Rained Down was a 2015 CBC Canada Reads selection. She lives in Montreal, Quebec.

About the Author

Louis Carmain: Louis Carmain holds an MA in Literary Studies from Laval University. He is now a resident of Gatineau, Quebec, where he works as a civil servant. His first novel, Guano, received the prestigious Collegians Award.
Rhonda Mullins: Rhonda Mullins was a finalist for the 2007 Governor General's Literary Award for Translation for The Decline of the Hollywood Empire by Hervé Fischer. She has also translated Jocelyne Saucier's Jeanne sur les routes into Jeanne's Road.