The Tale of Teeka

Talonbooks
Michel Marc Bouchard, translated by Linda Gaboriau
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Rural Quebec in the fifties. A battered child, Maurice, has taken refuge in a fantasy world. Alone on the farm one afternoon, he invites his pet goose, Teeka, into the house where his bedroom and the bathroom become the scene of some of Tarzan’s most terrifying adventures. His parents unexpected return forces Maurice to commit a desperate and cruel act of violence.
The original production of L’Histoire de l’Oie, toured by Théâtre des Deux Mondes in French, English, German and Spanish, represented Canada at numerous international festivals and garnered rave reviews and several prizes in Dublin, Glasgow, Hong Kong, Limoges, London, Mexico City, Munich, Toronto, and at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York.
Adapted for television by the playwright and directed by Tim Southam, L’Histoire de l’Oie / The Tale of Teeka was broadcast in French and English on the CBC / Radio Canada National Networks in the spring of 1999. The production won the Banff Television Festival Telefilm Canada Award for Best Canadian English-Language Production.

Contributor Bio

Michel Marc Bouchard
Quebec playwright Michel Marc Bouchard has written 25 plays, and he is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards, including le Prix Journal de Montréal, Prix du Cercle de critiques de l’Outaouais, the Governor General’s Award, the Dora Mavor Moore Award, and the Chalmers Award for Outstanding New Play. The Vancouver productions of Lilies (1993) and The Orphan Muses (1995) also garnered nine Jesse Richardson Theatre Awards. Bouchard is also the author of Written on Water; Down Dangerous Passes Road; The Coronation Voyage, which was performed in 2003 as the first Canadian-authored play at the Shaw Festival in 25 years; and The Tale of Teeka, all available in English from Talonbooks.

Linda Gaboriau
Linda Gaboriau is an award-winning literary translator based in Montreal. Her translations of plays by Quebec’s most prominent playwrights have been published and ­produced across Canada and abroad. In her work as a ­literary manager and dramaturge, she has directed ­numerous translation residencies and international exchange projects. She was the founding director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre. Most recently she won the 2010 Governor General’s Award for Forests, her translation of the play by Wajdi Mouawad.