Tragedy at Montreal's End of the World restaurant. A little marriage fatigue, a cottage to sell and a woman in cashmere: suddenly twenty seven years of conjugal life are swept away. Jean-Charles has left his wife. And with her goes the charm the restaurant possessed, where simple food was served to simple people. Sleepless Nights and Days of Glory, the third volume in Hélène Rioux's Fragments of the World series, opens with the theme of abandonment and betrayal, and then takes the reader around the world.
Hélène Rioux has published poetry, short stories, translations, and ten novels. She received the Prix France-Québec and the Prix Ringuet de l?Académie des Lettres du Québec forMercredi soir au Bout du monde (translated by Jonathan Kaplansky as Wednesday Night at the End of the World), the Grand Prix littéraire du Journal de Montréal, and the Prix de la Société des Écrivains canadiens for Chambre avec baignoire. She has been a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award six times. She has also translated into French books by Elizabeth Hay, Yann Martel, Jeffrey Moore, and Johanna Skibsrud. Her novels have been translated into Engliish, Spanish, and Bulgarian.