La rivière en hiver

by Rick Bass

Des rapaces parcourent le ciel, des chiens gambadent et des couguars se tapissent parmi les arbres. Les plaines sont balayées par les vents, les forêts sont lugubres ou enchanteresses et quand il ne neige pas, c'est qu'il va neiger. Dans La Rivière en hiver, Rick Bass se consacre aux fluctuations météorologiques, à la terre et à ceux qui l'habitent, solitaires et touchants. Que les hommes affrontent la nature ou la négligent, cette dernière les fascine au point de leur couper le souffle. Et si ses personnages s'adonnent à des activités quotidiennes – pister un élan, veiller sur un énorme poisson-chat ou trouver le parfait sapin de Noël – celles-ci se transforment, sous la plume de Rick Bass, en une expédition aux allures mythologiques parfois périlleuse, toujours mémorable. Rick Bass, considéré comme l'un des écrivains majeurs de l'Ouest américain, démontre avec La Rivière en hiver qu'il excelle dans la forme courte. Les huit nouvelles de ce recueil ont la densité et la force des meilleurs romans.

224 pages, Paperback

Published October 15, 2020

About the author

Rick Bass was born in Fort Worth, Texas, and grew up in Houston, the son of a geologist. He studied petroleum geology at Utah State University and while working as a petroleum geologist in Jackson, Mississippi, began writing short stories on his lunch breaks. In 1987, he moved with his wife, the artist Elizabeth Hughes Bass, to Montana’s remote Yaak Valley and became an active environmentalist, working to protect his adopted home from the destructive encroachment of roads and logging. He serves on the board of both the Yaak Valley Forest Council and Round River Conservation Studies and continues to live with his family on a ranch in Montana, actively engaged in saving the American wilderness.

Bass received the PEN/Nelson Algren Award in 1988 for his first short story, “The Watch,” and won the James Jones Fellowship Award for his novel Where the Sea Used To Be. His novel The Hermit’s Story was a Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year in 2000. The Lives of Rocks was a finalist for the Story Prize and was chosen as a Best Book of the Year in 2006 by the Rocky Mountain News. Bass’s stories have also been awarded the Pushcart Prize and the O. Henry Award and have been collected in The Best American Short Stories.