Horsefly

A chilling tale about what happens when we mess with nature.

In 1942, a young entomologist, Thomas, is sent to a remote island to work on biological weapons for the Allied military. The scientists live like prisoners while they produce anthrax and look for the perfect virus carrier among the island’s many insects.

Sixty years later, in the same region of Quebec, a heat wave unleashes swarms of horseflies while humans fall prey to strange flights of rage. Theodore is living a simple life, working double shifts and drinking to forget, when a horsefly bite stirs him from his apathy. He impulsively kidnaps his grandfather, whose dementia has him living in the past on Grosse Île.

The horseflies, meanwhile, know a few secrets...

Loosely based on historical fact, Horsefly is a terrifying tale about the ways in which we try to dominate nature, and how nature will, inevitably, wreak retribution upon us.

Mireille Gagné was born in Isle-aux-Grues and lives in Quebec City. Since 2010, she has published books of poetry, short stories, and the remarkable novel Le lièvre d’Amérique (2020), which ＂possesses a universal wisdom, the kind that is passed down from generation to generation and from which we too often lose our way.＂

Pablo Strauss is the translator of twelve works of fiction, several graphic novels, and the screenplay of one feature film, White Dog (2022). He is a three-time finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award for translation for The Country Will Bring Us No Peace (Coach House Books, 2020), Synapses (Talonbooks, 2019), and The Longest Year (House of Anansi, 2017). The Dishwasher, his translation of Stéphane Larue’s Le plongeur, won the 2020 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. He has published essays, reviews, and translations in Granta, Geist, The Literary Review of Canada, The Globe and Mail and The Montreal Review of Books. Pablo grew up in Victoria, BC, and has made his home in Quebec City for fifteen years.