Medusa

Martine Desjardins's chilling and poeticMedusais an incendiary story of women's body shame and men's body shaming, phallocratic oppression, and the power of femininity an inversion of the traditional balance of power that throws a light on so-called monstrosity. She's been called Medusa for so long that she's forgotten her real name. She walks with her head down, her face hidden behind her hair to spare others the sight of her Deformities eyes so horrible they repel women and petrify men. Medusa herself never dares to look at herself in a mirror. Driven from her family home, Medusa is locked up in the Athenum, an institute for young "malformed" girls, which stands on the shores of a lake infested with jellyfish. In this dismal abyss, where Benefactors indulge in cruel games with their protges, she gradually discovers the prodigious and formidable faculties of her ocular Sickenings. The day when Medusa finally emerges from her confinement, she sows destruction in her path. But before she can take revenge on the Benefactors who humiliated her, she'll first have to face the treacherous gaze of her nemesis and the deadly gaze of her own Abominations. (From Talonbooks)

• 66 works of Canadian fiction to watch for in spring 2022

Martine Desjardins is a writer and the former assistant editor-in-chief at ELLE Qubec. Her first novel, Le cercle de Clara, was published in 1997 and nominated for the Prix littraires du Qubec and the Grand prix des lectrices de ELLE Qubec. Desjardins lives in Montreal.

Oana Avasilichioaei is an award-winning poet, performance artist and translator. Her translation work includes the novelThe Faerie Devouring by Catherine Lalonde, and two of Bertrand Laverdure's books,Readopolis, for which she won the Governor General's Literary Award for translation,and Neptune Room. Avasilichioaei lives in Montreal.