Bilodo lives a solitary daily life, routinely completing his postal rounds every day and returning to his empty Montreal apartment. But he has found a way to break the cycle — Bilodo has taken to stealing people's mail, steaming open the envelopes, and reading the letters inside. And so it is he comes across Ségolène's letters. She is corresponding with Gaston, a master poet, and their letters are each composed of only three lines. They are writing each other haikus. The simplicity and elegance of their poems move Bilado and he begins to fall in love with her. But one day, out on his round, he witnesses a terrible and tragic accident. Just as Gaston is walking up to the post-box to mail his next haiku to Ségolène, he is hit by a car and dies on the side of the road. And so Bilodo makes an extraordinary decision — he will impersonate Gaston and continue to write to Ségolène under this guise. But how long can the deception continue for? DenisThériault weaves a passionate and elegant tale, comic and tragic with a love story at its heart.

Denis Theriault is an award-winning screenwriter living in Montreal. After studying psychology and drama, he began to write for the stage and television. L'Iguane (The Iguana), Theriault's first novel, was published to great critical acclaim and won three major literary prizes: the Prix Anne-Hebert 2002, the Prix France-Quebec/Jean Hamelin 2001, and the Prix Odyssee 2002 for best first novel.

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Winner of both the Canada Council Translation Prize and the John Glassco Translation Prize, Liedewy Hawke has been nominated four times for the Governor General's Literary Award for Translation (French to English) and is a recent winner, with author Lise Dion, of the White Pine Non-Fiction Award. One of her translations, republished in the U.K., was featured on the BBC Radio 2 Book Club, and she has also translated works by prominent Dutch and Flemish authors as well as three previous works by Louise Dupré. She lives in Toronto.

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