Spring Tides

Peacefully employed on an uninhabited island, a translator of comic strips (codename Teddy Bear) lives in the company of his dictionaries, his marauding cat, Matousalem, and his tennis ball machine (the Prince). Convinced that the translator''s happiness is in jeopardy, his boss helicopters in a few solitude-seeking companions-the beautiful and elusive Marie with her flirtatious cat Moustache; the seductive nudist, Featherhead; Professor Moccasin, the half-deaf comic strip scholar; the moody and contradictory Author; the Ordinary Man; and the Organizer, sent to "sensitize the population." As the spring tides drag ocean debris onto the shore, Teddy Bear and his companions seek out their own solitudes in this hilarious philosophical fable.

Jacques Poulin''s novels include Volkswagen Blues (a finalist for Canada Reads 2005) and La tourne d''automne (Autumn Rounds). Poulin received the 1978 Governor General''s Award for Les Grandes Mares(Spring Tides) and the Molson Prize for lifetime artistic contribution in 1990 and 2000. He lives in Qubec.