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LEWISTON — Author Michèle Laliberté will speak about her debut novel, “Nativa,” at 3:30 p.m. Friday, Jan. 21, via Zoom and Lewiston Public Library’s Facebook page.
The conversation will be conducted in French, and Laliberté will be interviewed by Museum L-A board member Camden Martin. It is free and open to the public. 
“Nativa” is the fictional diary of Florida Faubert, the author’s paternal grandmother. It begins with the story of two children born in Sainte-Cécile de Valleyfield, Quebec, who are separated from their families and sent to Lewiston in 1895. Florida is sent to her Aunt Odile, and Nativa to the orphanage of the Parisian nuns of Notre-Dame de Sion. In Canada a few years later, Nativa becomes mistress to Camillien Houde. If the former bank manager remains until today a famous figure of Canada’s Conservative Party, the woman who joined him on the sly in his suite at the Hotel Mont-Royal in Montreal is even more so. But through research and family anecdotes, Laliberté balances fiction and reality, breaking a century-old taboo to rehabilitate the memory of her great-aunt and, by the same token, take a new look at an important figure in Quebec’s national history.
Laliberté has taught languages, literature, translation, cinema and writing for more than 30 years including at McGill University and Université de Montréal. She joined the Université du Québec en Outaouais in 2011, where she is professor in translation. Her main field of research is theater and audiovisual translation, literary writing and film adaptation.
Interviewer Martin is attended Edward Little High School, then the Lycée Albert Camus in Nîmes, France, after earning a scholarship that permitted him to study in France for two months. Two months turned into two years. After graduating from both schools, he worked in French language customer service before attending Cégep Saint Félicien in Québec, where he studied environmental protection. Upon returning to Maine, he worked at Museum L-A before becoming a French teacher at St. Dominic Academy.
For more information, contact the LPL Adult & Teen Services desk at 207-513-3135 or LPLReference@lewistonmaine.gov.
