The Grand Hotel of Foreigners (First Edition)

In The Grand Hotel of Foreigners, Claude Beausoleil invites the reader on a voyage which is as much an interior one as a physical one. The narrator explores themes which are important to him, offering an urbane space in which he questions himself about the nature of solitude, wandering, the distance which forms and grows between people, and writing. Beausoleil sustains a strong, rich rhythm which transports the reader and makes him into a traveller into his own mysteries. The Grand Hotel of Foreigners transcended the page and became virtual poetry in a multimedia show created by Michel Lemieux and Victor Pilon in collaboration with Claude Beausoleil, which toured the United States, Canada and Venezuela.

Since 1972, Claude Beausoleil has published 58 books, including Intrusion ralenti, Avatars du trait, Le Dormeur, Fureur de Mexico, La vie singulière, Le Rythme des lieux and Rue du jour. He published his first novel, Fort Sauvage, in 1994 and has also edited numerous anthologies, including La poésie canadienne and La poésie mexicaine. Beausoleil teaches at Montreal's Collège Édouard-Montpetit.

From 1978 to 1985 Beausoleil was the poetry critic for Le Devoir in Montreal. He has collaborated on many literary magazines both in Québec and internationally, including Estuaire, Nuit blanche, Jungle and Europe. He is the director of the poetry magazine Lèvres urbaines which began in 1983.

In the course of his career, Beausoleil has won many prizes, including the Nelligan poetry prize, the Grand prix de poésie du Journal de Montréal, the prix Estuaire d

George Morrissette is a Winnipeg-based poet.

Jed English lives in France, where he writes and translates poetry in connection with the Centre Georges-Pompidou.