Winner of the 2023 Prix Médicis, Prix Décembre, and Prix Ringuet

Céline Wachowski, internationally renowned architect and accidental digital-culture icon, finally unveils her plans for the Webuy Complex, her first major public project commissioned by the city of Montreal, her hometown. But instead of the triumphant celebration she anticipates in at last bringing her reputation to bear in her own city, the project is immediately excoriated by critics, who accuse her of callously destroying the social fabric of struggling neighborhoods, ushering in a new era of gentrification, and many even deadlier sins. Caught in the turmoil between her vision for a new Montreal and the protestors whose actions grow increasingly personal, Céline must make sense of the charges against herself and the milieu in which she finds the people she believes to be her friends. For the first time in danger of losing their footing, what fictions do they tell themselves to justify their privileges, and to maintain their position in the world that they themselves have built?

A dazzling social novel set in the microcosm of the ultra privileged, May Our Joy Endure depicts with razor-sharp acuity the terrible beauty of wealth, influence, and art in the era of late capitalism.

Kevin Lambert's profile page

Donald Winkler was born in Winnipeg, graduated from the University of Manitoba, and did graduate study at the Yale School of Drama. From 1967 to 1995 he was a film director and writer at the National Film Board of Canada in Montreal, and since the 1980s, a translator of Quebec literature. In 1994, 2011, and 2013 he won the Governor General Award for French to English translation, and has been a finalist for the prize on three other occasions. His translation of Samuel Archibald's short story collection, "Arvida," was a finalist for the 2015 Giller Prize. He lives in Montreal, Quebec.

Donald Winkler's profile page

• Winner, Prix Ringuet
• Short-listed, Prix Goncourt
• Winner, Prix Médicis
• Winner, Prix Décembre

Praise for Querelle of Roberval

"It has finally arrived: the erotic Québécois novel about labor conflict that we’ve all been waiting for ... The book is written in an icy style. Try to find a surplus adjective—I dare you. It is not for the squeamish but (or rather, and) is easily one of the best novels I’ve read this year."
—Molly Young, New York Times

"As this off-putting yet attractively written novel explores both meanings of the word 'union,' sex and domination are presented as conjoined compulsions that can lead to brutal forms of ecstasy."
—Sam Sacks, Wall Street Journal

"Structured as a reimagining of Greek tragedy, Querelle of Roberval is a book that reads like a swift, vivid dream. The language is direct and cuts straight to the bone, while dealing with passions both personal and professional ... Brutal and beautiful by turns, this novel will grip readers from the first sentence all the way to its shocking conclusion."
—David Vogel, Buzzfeed

“Lambert’s fearless novel is a profane, funny, bleak, touching, playful, and outrageous satire of sexual politics, labour, and capitalism ... The book is brash, beautiful, quasi-mythic, and tragic. Most improbably, for all its daring and provocation, Querelle of Roberval is lyrically, even tenderly written.”
—Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize Judges’ Citation