Hanover. When in a novel “the gravel crunches under your shoes”, “the engine roars”, or “a bus squeaks”, these are fairly traditional formulations. The novel “Mican – the wind still speaks about it” by French-Canadian author and journalist Michel Jean, published in Montreal in 2013, is fraught with such linguistic restrictions.

At the beginning of the season, Michel Jean reads from his novel, now published in German by Weiser-Verlag, at the Literary Salon of the University of Leibniz. He read from the original language version in a quieter voice, that is, in French, while actor Rainer Frank presented the passages in the German translation in a very lively manner. The evening was moderated by literary critic Cornelius Wullenkamper. Neither the moderator nor the audience was interested in the language of the novel. There were more important things than form: content.