I, Chimera

Biology and belonging are usually best kept separate. One seems precise and ineluctable, only marginally within our control; the other is contingent and can be radically reshaped by the lives we choose to lead. Myriam Ouellette’s Souches documents an extreme case where these registers collide, as the narrator’s body revolts and makes its claims in the stark terms of genetics.

This powerful novel is a work of autofiction based on Ouellette’s cancer diagnosis and bone marrow transplant. The charged title has no direct English equivalent. It refers to both the “stems” of stem cells and a cultural pedigree: the phrase “Québécois de souche” describes “old stock” francophones and is loaded with connotations of ethnic purity. Ouellette’s origins are plural: her father a descendant of the colonists of New France and her mother from Morocco’s Jewish community. When, in her forties, Ouellette develops leukemia, this ancestry becomes a complication. After chemotherapy...