Lori saint-martin biography

Learning another language can be a transformative experience; it can, quite literally, change your life. In learning another language, one becomes another person: stupid, inarticulate, and without a sense of humour at first and then, gradually, someone with a different identity. For Lori Farnham, learning French was a passport to worlds beyond, a ticket to escape, a life-altering experience.

She was an unhappy child growing up in Kitchener, Ontario, in the s. There were harsh exchanges at the dinner table.

Lori Saint-Martin was a Canadian author

The phrase is deeper than it appears. If it is intended really as a question and not as a putdown you are not as good as you think , it means that one can become someone else, and be transformed. Decide who you are. Pour qui te prends-tu? One day, very early, I took myself to be someone else, for someone who was going to learn French and leave forever.

And I did. Many children and adolescents feel alienated from their families and the environment in which they live, but not many completely transform themselves. For Saint-Martin, a new name meant a new identity. But a trip to Berlin in made her realize that, just as she had fled from English, her grandparents had fled from German, around the time that Berlin, Ontario, changed its name to Kitchener.

A lack of knowledge was imposed upon me. A form of violence. Together, they opened the door to English literature for French speakers in Quebec with more than books.