(From the acceptance speech): Perhaps the efforts of imagination, empathy and courage it demands of us are exactly what are needed, not only as balm for our disappointments, but also as training of the kind G. B. Shaw might have wished for the next step in our evolution. --Nigel Spencer, Translator I was really happy that Nigel Spencer won for his translation. He's won twice before for translating Marie-Claire Blais...she's where it's at. --Azure Scratchings: Blue Metropolis Literary Festival. Nigel Spencer of Montreal won his third Governor General's Award interpreting a work by Quebec author Marie-Claire Blais. Translators are playing a greater and greater role as books cross linguistic borders: "Certainly in Canada more and more, and of course in Europe with the European Community." --The Canadian Press: NOV. 13, 2012. Breathless: Mai at the Predators’Ball begins with Dieudonné saying to Petites Cendres“love, my friend, love before every last bell has tolled for you,” and the book is about love...wherever you find love that is your family, even with all its flaws, so many of the scenes in the book take place at the Porte du Baiser Saloon, a magical, very Montreal kind of club where talented artists create beautiful shows, Yinn the “Thai prince”...loves them all, and this is a great pleasure for the reader, the genuine fluidity of gender, but only for men, the girls and women in this book are restrained, hemmed in, or suffer if they let themselves claim freedom, that's the Predators' Ball...and Mai with her inline skates, saving herself from the worst impulses of the damaged people around her, the world intrudes..it's a tour de force, a demonstration of the consummate skill of the author, and it forces the reader to see all the different worlds of the many characters as connected, literally part of one long sentence, and eventually we see the worlds are connected by the characters too, as in life..let it all work its way into your bloodstream...all the death, all the struggle, all the love. --Elise Moser—Montreal Review of Books READER REVIEWS: (Chantale—on GOODREADS) This book explores sexuality and femininity, it reveals an alluring club nightlife juxtaposed with life in the suburbs. A group of drag queens at an evening club perform for both men and women. Young innocent girls promise their fathers to be innocent forever but don't stick to this moral code and no one is entirely honest with each other. The book starts off with a death from drug overdose or from illness and a memorial service is performed. This is experimental literature which challenges our assumptions of what a book should be. The book has no paragraphs, the text is justified and the sentences go on and on with commas, periods are mainly used to introduce a change in voice from Mai to the boys from the Porte du Baiser Saloon. The writing is stream of conscious and the characters change from comma to comma and the story jumps from present to past to inner dialogue between each comma as well. It is easy enough to follow once you get into it and get a feel for the writing style. This is not a book to read in one sitting and it requires a quiet room and much reflection. Mai at the Predators' Ball overwhelms you at first but the fast paced sentences capture your imagination, challenge your mind and make you marvel at how Blais is able to connect so many stories so seamlessly.

Nigel Spencer has achieved nothing short of brilliance. He has met the formidable challenge of conveying the complexity and richness of this narrative with a mastery that is stunning in its range of colour and tone. The GGLA JURY. I found myself deeply engrossed in her hallucinatory and poetic story. Like any hallucinogen, once you give yourself over to it, you can welcome in the mind-expanding experience. --Zoe Whittall--- GLOBE AND MAIL