Words that liberate

It's gone badly. Around the table, the small gang of inmates can't think of anything good to say about the book they read this month as part of the book club. In turn, they pronounce their verdict. “Long and painful. "Emotionless." " " A chore. »

And yet, in the hour that will follow, by dint of discussions and trial and error, these women with a dark past will approach with unusual finesse the themes dearest to philosophers and historians.

In a dingy kitchen of the Joliette penitentiary which serves as their meeting room, each is provided with its copy of Wars, a classic of English-Canadian literature by Timothy Findley. This story of young soldiers killing each other under endless gray skies during the First World War leads them to explore the dark side of human nature. To compare their ordeal to that of these men going mad in the muddy trenches. To wonder if, placed in the same context, they would have obeyed the same orders, committed the same massacres. And if they would have been able to preserve, despite barbarism, a piece of their humanity.

Behind the scenes is a question that will come up often, in one form or another, during the hours that I will spend with them: do we bear full responsibility for our actions?

From April to October 2016, I attended six meetings of the book club at the Joliette prison for women, near Montreal, an extremely rare permit obtained after a year of dealings with the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC ). One evening a month, about fifteen inmates, of all ages and backgrounds, meet to share their impressions of the chosen book, in the company of two volunteers. Since the club was created in April 2014, they have read everything: classics, historical novels, horror, Margaret Atwood (a flop), Mordecai Richler, The Count of Monte-Cristo, the comic book Paul in Quebec, Hunger Games. They discuss it in a joyful calm, crossed by points of sadness or bitterness, but most often punctuated by loud bursts of laughter.

In a prison world that has become more overwhelming and explosive in recent years, these moments of communion around reading constitute a sanctuary. “Without that, we feel the walls tightening around us. It's the only time when you have the opportunity to feel somewhere other than in a prison,” Karine, a member of the first hour, told me. There are 29 clubs in the 43 men's and women's federal penitentiaries in Canada, run by a Toronto-based charity, Book Clubs for Inmates. Joliette is the only establishment in Quebec where this activity is offered.

All over the world, people are mobilizing to improve access to books behind bars. Clubs of this kind can be seen emerging in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Croatia, Poland and Japan. Because reading is much more than an escape for prisoners in need of distraction: it is a powerful lever for transformation, a remarkable tool to prepare them to reintegrate into society and reduce their risk of recidivism.

But in Canada, the lack of commitment from prison authorities threatens these efforts. In his latest report, released in the fall, Canada's Correctional Investigator and Inmate Ombudsman exposes the deep gaps in access to reading and education in penitentiaries across the country. Howard Sapers held this position for 12 years before becoming an adviser to the Ontario government in December. “The majority of people serving a federal sentence will one day return to the community,” he explained to me in an interview. When they leave, their experience must have served some purpose and public safety must be strengthened. It costs more than $100,000 to detain a man in a penitentiary for a year, double that for a woman. We have to make sure that we get the best possible return for this investment. »

A motley tribe

The women around me have killed, defrauded, robbed, drug-trafficking, messed with the mafia. All received prison sentences of two years or more (shorter sentences are served in provincial prisons). Neither I nor any other visitor can be alone with them without a portable panic button.

To enter the enclosure, I had to pass through the metal detector, have my hand examined using an ion scanner, a sort of probe which detects traces of narcotics, and remain motionless while a dog handler guided his sniffing beagle around me.

However, once seated next to them, in the kitchen with apple green walls that could be that of a community center, I come to forget that I am “inside”. Sometimes I even jump when I see the imposing chain-link fence topped with barbed wire through the window, a chilling reminder that we are cut off from the world here.

I discover a motley tribe, several of its members already bulimic in reading, others who don't yet know how to go about appreciating a book. There are talkative ones, others more subdued, elegant ones, sulky ones, sneering ones. Marie-Ève*, a pensive woman with a pale complexion but a keen eye, likes to raise existential reflections and quote the poetic passages she has underlined. Johanne*, surly and tattooed mid-forties, will miss a few meetings when she is sent to the "hole", that is to say in solitary confinement in a cell 23 hours a day. Sonia*, lover of tales of knights and of princesses, bears the marks of a rough life on her face and does not have all the words to express the thoughts that tumble from her toothless mouth. There's also Clara*, in her early twenties, a potential comedian who would have what it takes to share the stage with Louis-José Houde. Danielle*, a middle-aged woman with a tired posture, fond of history and genealogy, who sometimes shows up with notes scribbled on a sheet. And the essential Christine, the matriarch and leader of the book club, whose mischievous look shelters a well of sadness.

They integrate me into their well-honed mechanics. From its chaotic beginnings, I am told, the book club has become a structured affair, with rounds of tables where everyone has the opportunity to express themselves; questions that are written on slips of paper and drawn to stimulate discussion; constant prompts to listen without interrupting. “I saw the character of certain women change a great deal, as they were pointed behind armor,” Karine told me.

The inmates of the country's five women's penitentiaries — there are about 700 of them, including 115 in Joliette — are among the most tormented beings in society. Crushed, even more than the men, in the cycle of violence, mental illness and misery.

No less than 86% of them have experienced physical violence, and 68% sexual abuse, according to the most recent data from the Correctional Service and the Office of the Correctional Investigator. Half have mental health problems - twice as many as among male prisoners - and nearly one in two take psychotropic drugs. In fact, almost all of them (94%) had suffered from at least one psychiatric disorder in their lifetime—notably post-traumatic stress disorder, which 52% of inmates suffered from. More than three quarters are drug addicts or alcoholics. A good half have already inflicted injuries on themselves or tried to end their lives.

Specialists readily speak of "survival crime" to explain the rout of these deficient beings. At the time of entering the penitentiary, two-thirds had not finished high school and 60% were unemployed. The majority are also mothers: more than 70% of prisoners have children under the age of 18, most often in a single-parent situation. “Survival crime is a choice for lack of choice. You are dependent on alcohol or drugs, you need money, you are more at risk of being in conflict with the law, if only by engaging in prostitution or stealing. And there, you're caught in a spiral,” explains Ruth Gagnon, executive director of the Elizabeth Fry Society of Quebec, a community organization that helps women in the criminal justice system. “There are some who, barely out of childhood, were already marked for the rest of their lives. »

Controlled skid

During my second visit to the prison, at the end of April, these brutal realities burst into the book club, and nearly blew everything up.

A novel of unbearable violence is on the program that evening: A girl like the others, by Jack Ketchum, a thriller which tells the story of a teenager tortured to death in the basement of a suburban house. , in the United States, in the 1950s. The author spares no detail on the physical and sexual torture inflicted on young Meg by her deranged aunt, Ruth, and her three sons. The idea that such atrocities are inspired by real events, that the 12-year-old neighbor witnessed them without intervening, that an entire community pretended not to know, all of this touches too sensitive chords here.

The atmosphere is charged, almost solemn, in the small room. I see some who dry furtive tears, others who stare into space or rub their eyes; the voices are more muffled than usual. Many evoke the bad memories that the novel awakens: the abuse suffered in childhood, the calls for help that remained unanswered. Some go so far as to question their participation in the activity. “I was in enough tabarnak that I wanted to let go, says Manon*. When I read, it's a hobby. That, that, it sickens me and I don't feel like talking about it for an hour. It turned me upside down. »

Halfway through the meeting, Caroline*, unable to contain herself any longer, heads for the door: “I'd better get out before I say anything that might hurt your ears. “In tears, Cindy* follows suit almost immediately: “There are things that have happened to my children that are similar, and I am as capable as possible. “Never has a book caused such a stir since the beginnings of the club.

Animosity rumbles beneath the surface. Accusatory overtones, launched in a defiant tone. Veiled threats. "We're sitting at a table, in a penitentiary, and we live with people like that," fumes Johanne*. Do we agree that, outside, my neighbor would do that, she would eat a nasty somersault? »

It was only later that I understood what it was all about, when Fanny Derouin, coordinator of volunteers, who attended the scene, made me a revelation. Sitting at the table, among the members of the book club, is a woman—she didn't tell me which one—who abused children.

However, the tension ended up defusing. While putting the abominable Aunt Ruth on trial, the inmates began to wonder about the roots of her violence: to consider what illness, what self-loathing, what oppression had led her to unleash on the young lady. "She must have been a victim too," says Danielle*. You still get damage when you inflict damage. She must not love herself as a woman to try to banish the one who was growing up in front of her. All were not always in agreement. But little by little, what promised to be a stormy session turned into a remarkably poised analytical process.

This power of words to heal certain wounds, Karine will summarize it for me during a one-on-one in prison, a few weeks later: "Every emotion that we carry within us, every disgust that we don't know how externalizing, through the characters of the novels we are able to evacuate it, makes us grow. »

A skid was nevertheless narrowly avoided, and the episode caused a reaction in high places. That a book can rekindle trauma or fuel conflict is not trivial in such a volatile environment. “Our job is also to make sure that the women are safe,” Fanny Derouin explains to me. Some inmates may express their rage and despair by cutting their skin, swallowing sharp objects, strangling themselves with ligatures, banging their heads against walls. Across women's penitentiaries, "increasingly serious, chronic and near-fatal self-harm behaviors" are spreading, the Correctional Investigator notes in his latest report, lamenting that institutions are ill-equipped to deal with " women offenders with serious mental health issues”. In 10 years, the number of episodes of self-harm among inmates has increased sevenfold, while the number of suicide attempts has more than tripled, according to figures provided to me by his office. Assaults between prisoners are twice as common today as a decade ago.

Thus, since that famous April evening, the book club has aroused a certain nervousness in Joliette. From now on, each book selected must be read in advance by the social programs officer and approved by management, specifies the director, Cynthia Racicot, "to ensure that we are available for inmates who need support. ".

The fairy Christina

The following month, when I interviewed Christine, the inmate in charge of the book club and library, the idea that the business might be in jeopardy brought her to tears. " I care a lot. It's my baby,” she told me, wiping her eyes, revealing a vulnerability I haven't seen in her often. It is she who recruits the members, who takes the attendance and who directs the exchanges with the authority of a teacher. She is also the one who chooses the titles, somewhat tentatively, based on suggestions from other women, volunteers or employees; a list is sent to Book Clubs for Inmates, who buy brand new copies for each of the participants.

At the dawn of her sixties, Christine has already spent 12 years in Joliette, and she has at least 3 more before being eligible for parole. "Because I'm here for a very long time. And I don't feel like spending all my years doing nothing or just taking care of myself. But when she started asking for more books for the library and taking steps to set up a club, she had to overcome the skepticism of prison staff, she says. “I was told that I was utopian. The CSC did not believe so much in literary activities before. Rather, they believed that women should meet their basic needs. But a fundamental need is also to open your mind. The sequel proved him right.

The taste for reading has spread like a virus, she says, well beyond the 15 members of the club. At least a dozen inmates are on a waiting list to join (hence the rule applied to the letter: two unjustified absences or two unfinished readings lead to expulsion). Attendance is breaking records at the library, reaching around a hundred visits each week. “The girls who are members tell others about it, these girls want to know what's next, come and see if we have other books of the same genre. The majority of women here were not able to search outside libraries. Now I see that people are interested in things they never were interested in before. »

Long live Mary of the Incarnation

No one expected, however, that the choice of the month of May arouses great passions: a biography of Marie de l'Incarnation, by the Franco-Quebec author Françoise Deroy-Pineau. These prisoners who like to say that they hated their history lessons at school were probably going to sulk, it was thought, this scholarly document, full of dates and technical details.

However, many have devoured the story of the adventures of the nun born Marie Guyart, central figure of New France and founder of the Ursulines of Quebec. The prisoners discovered a heroine worthy of them in this nun who had been a businesswoman and single mother in Tours, before separating from her son to enter the monastery. Landed in Quebec in 1639, Marie de l'Incarnation remained cloistered there for the rest of her life. But she will do everything from this seclusion: manage the finances, design the plans for a new convent and watch over the site, study the indigenous languages. Surrounded by equally intrepid French and Amerindian women, she will brave the cold, hunger, even the temptation to commit suicide, so that the first school for girls in North America will survive. "It just demonstrates that women, when we hold each other, when we put all our little fists together, we have unimaginable strength," said Karine during a round table.

Does anyone know how to treat a pinched nerve this shit has me in tears!!!

— Quashia Serrano Tue Apr 08 14:56:36 +0000 2014

The story has special resonances for this descendant of Attikameks and Hurons. “By being here, I reconnected with my roots,” she continues. Makes me, wow, it gave me even more juice, and it's gonna push me to do more research. I understand more the rebellions and claims of today. Aboriginal people are significantly overrepresented in the prison population: they make up 36% of women in prison, and they are the fastest growing subgroup of all inmates.

During her three-year stay in Joliette, Karine drew a new serenity from traditional spirituality. The 39-year-old woman notably participated in ceremonies in the sweat lodge erected on the prison grounds, and consulted with an elder who works as a spiritual guide with First Nations inmates. This evening, a few weeks before her release, she is wearing a "healing bracelet" adorned with colored beads, a symbol of her journey. The next time I see her, it will be "outside".

Karine isn't the only one in a festive mood on this mild evening that heralds the heat of summer. To close out the second year of the book club, Christine presented “certificates of achievement” to six of the hardest-working members, to applause and cheers from the group. “You can give them to the commissioners [of the Parole Board], she explains to them. To show that you were able to participate in an activity without being paid, without being forced by your case management team. She had cooked a carrot cake, which she distributed to us on pieces of paper towel; coffee was also served, a rare luxury.

The modest ceremony spread a wave of jubilation around the table. Rarely have I found women as radiant as that evening, so often won over with giggles, so joyously cacophonous. The eerie barbed wire fence outside seemed for a moment more distant. The nasal hum of the loudspeakers broadcasting calls, in the background, seemed to be muted somewhat.

Efforts to reward?

There are places in the world where female prisoners would have received more than a paper diploma for their efforts. In some countries, reading in prison is so valued that it allows prisoners to lighten their sentence. In Brazil, since 2012, federal prisoners can shorten theirs by four days for each book read and summarized in an essay, up to 48 days a year. In France, a reform adopted in 2014 provides for remissions of up to two months for prisoners who write reports of their readings.

In the United States, criminals can even avoid prison if they enroll in an 8 to 12 week program on literature, led by a university professor, a judge and a probation officer. Founded in 1991 in Massachusetts, Changing Lives Through Literature now exists in ten states. It is above all offenders with a heavy past, considered to be at high risk of recidivism, who are selected to take part. And everything indicates that it works.

Sociologists evaluated the results in a study published in 2013 in the journal Journal of Offender Rehabilitation. They reviewed the criminal records of more than 1,200 offenders on probation, half having participated in the program, the others not. Those who had followed it were less likely to reoffend in the subsequent 18 months than those who had not adhered to it: their offenses were not only fewer in number, but less serious.

Can a few hours talking about literature really transform hardened criminals? No controlled studies have yet been conducted on Canadian clubs, but the model that inspired them, in the UK, has been thoroughly examined. Prison Reading Groups, based at the University of Roehampton in London, oversees more than 40 such groups in prisons across the country. The report, released in 2013, identifies a wide range of positive outcomes for inmates — from empathy to literacy, from communication skills to self-esteem, to a sense of belonging and the capacity for introspection.

During one of my visits to the prison, I asked the principals concerned to describe to me the role that the book club played in their lives. That evening, we discussed the novel On the Threshold, by Patrick Senécal, a Quebec horror specialist who has fervent admirers within the group. In this bloody suspense, an ultra-Cartesian psychiatrist is forced to reconsider his certainties in the presence of a patient who seems possessed by evil forces. Little by little, the doctor lets doubt enter his mind, approaches a threshold he never thought he would cross. For the members of the Joliette club, reading is a bit like that: a key that opens unsuspected doors within them.

It's not just the words on the pages that unleash minds. It is also the fact of discussing it in a group and being placed before divergent points of view. “I like the discussions, because it opens me up to other opinions, to another vision of the book. Sometimes, it can go so far as to push me to read it again,” says Delphine*. And then, by forcing themselves to come to the end of works that they would not have chosen, many discover resources that they did not know. "Today, I'm taking my things to the end," continues Delphine, who has also started writing songs. “Maybe I had a stereotype, as if in prison we were all cellars. But I find us studious, brilliant,” proudly underlines Sophie*, a flirtatious young woman with an outspoken voice, whom I have seen flourish over the course of the meetings. “The book club allows me to see that there is more to life than consumption,” says Josiane* simply.

Little by little, by dint of exercising this mental flexibility, conceiving other destinies, other looks, new ways of being and thinking, they begin to reimagine themselves. “The girls at the penitentiary, we have stayed on the same note so much in our lives that sometimes getting out of our comfort zone and seeing things from another angle opens up other horizons for us, not just in the reading, but in our life in general", says Emma*, a talkative young woman with long hair and painted nails. “Because if you can see it with a book, you can see it with your life. So much so that the majority of participants promise to join a similar club once outside.

When I saw Karine again, five months after her release from prison, while she was staying at the Thérèse-Casgrain halfway house in Montreal, the confidence acquired in the group had not left her, nor the radiance that animates her when she talks about her love of books. “It made me push my limits,” she told me. What remains to me is that today I am able to express myself, to assert myself, to take a certain place, to which I am entitled. If I'm able to give my opinion in a book club, I'm able in other areas. Whether it's at work, in my personal life, in my Narcotics Anonymous fellowship, in everything. On parole for a few more years, Karine now lives in Estrie, where she divides her time between reading, volunteering and looking for a job. She even offered to help two libraries in her area to start a book club there.

The Harper Legacy

The boss of the Joliette penitentiary, Cynthia Racicot, now seems won over to the benefits of this activity. The awakening to the pleasure of reading can, according to her, help women to continue their school career and prepare them to occupy better jobs, essential ramparts against crime. Their ability to relate to others and manage conflicts is also improved, notes the criminologist by training, met in a conference room of the establishment. “It breaks the isolation,” she continues. Since they are often the same women from one meeting to another, a bond of trust is established, and it becomes possible to indulge, to talk about their emotions, which they may not have been able to do before. »

But across the country, the place given to reading in prison depends more on the goodwill of prison managers than on a coherent institutional policy. And not everyone has the same enthusiasm for it.

Carol Finlay, the Anglican minister and ex-teacher who founded Book Clubs for Inmates in 2009, says prison authorities sometimes give her a hard time. Each time she wants to introduce a club into a penitentiary, she has to convince the management of the merits of her work, again comply with heavy administrative formalities, and face a certain suspicion. “I'm not telling you the difficulty, the bureaucracy! she admits to me. We are not a priority, because the clubs are not part of the basic correctional programs. They are considered a hobby. But those who know us know how much our work is directly related to what is taught in these programs, on anger management, in particular. »

Critics worry that such an initiative relies on a struggling charity. Book Clubs for Inmates receives no public funds; its annual budget of $165,000 is funded exclusively by private donations. In the eyes of some observers, its mission should first be the responsibility of the state.

However, a more repressive approach has insinuated itself behind bars as the prison population has swelled – it has increased by 5% in 10 years in all penitentiaries, and by 38% in women's institutions. This is the legacy of the policies of Stephen Harper's Conservative government, which have had the effect of sending more people to prison and keeping them locked up longer. Meanwhile, resources devoted to reintegration have dwindled. "Women don't have much to take care of," said Howard Sapers, who until recently was Canada's correctional investigator, in an interview. The Correctional Service has a good inventory of programs, but it is unable to provide them to everyone who needs them in a timely manner, due to a lack of resources or personnel. Spending on education and vocational training is also falling, he adds, as needs grow.

More and more, it is the strong way which prevails. The Correctional Investigator has denounced, in his last two reports, the excessive use of solitary confinement and the increase in the use of force against inmates (which includes the increasingly common use of pepper spray), including to control people in psychiatric crisis. Women's penitentiaries, built in the 1990s and 2000s, were meant to move away from the traditional prison, with living units featuring kitchens and common areas where women live as roommates. But that didn't shield them from that hardened grip. In all penitentiaries, according to figures provided to me by the Office of the Correctional Investigator, the number of use of force cases has increased by 51% in a decade. In institutions for women, it jumped 80%.

An author cut to pieces!

When they show up at the club meeting on the last Tuesday of the month, hoping to forget their daily life of quarrels and lack, the inmates of Joliette are thirsty. Thirst for substance, depth, elevation. But the book they are to discuss today, La vie en gros, by Quebecer Mélissa Perron, is singularly devoid of it. In the kitchen, which had become stifling on this stormy August evening, they tore him to pieces.

This chronicle of the setbacks of a young obese thirty-year-old, written in a tone of confidence, was intended to be spiritual. Mais presque toutes les femmes l'ont trouvée d'une désolante vacuité, d'une extraordinaire complaisance. « Un livre d'anecdotes. Y a absolument rien là-dedans, s'impatiente Nicole*, une détenue plus âgée qui anime depuis peu à Joliette un club anglophone. La lecture, c'est très important pour nous. On veut pas perdre notre temps. Quand on s'attend à lire pis à être captivée, on veut s'en aller dans un autre monde que le pénitencier. » Pas cette fois.

Ce qui les met hors d'elles, c'est la tendance du personnage, Daphnée-Rose, à s'apitoyer sur son sort et à attribuer tous ses échecs à son excès de poids, mécanismes qu'elles démontent avec une impitoyable acuité. Clara* mène la charge, et sa verve crue fait s'écrouler de rire la petite assemblée. « Moi, je suis gréyée de cuisses, dit-elle. Je suis pas super-méga-toutoune, mais tabarouette, je suis carrée. Pis quand j'ai lu ça ? Motive-toi ! Va au gym ! Si t'as un ostie de caractère de marde, attends-toi pas à ce que tout aille bien dans ta vie ! Il m'a outrée, ce livre-là. Je l'ai lu sur la toilette pendant un mois. »

Ce refus de prendre la responsabilité de ce qui lui arrive, ça ne passe pas ici.

Des livres dans un sac-poubelle

Les livres ont toujours eu un statut ambigu derrière les barreaux. Il y a quelque chose de subversif dans ces objets qui permettent de s'évader de l'enfermement et de la répression. À travers le temps, les autorités carcérales ont tenté de les contrôler, de les exclure, les ont traités avec méfiance, négligence ou mépris.

Une directive du Service correctionnel du Canada, en vigueur depuis 2007, prévoit que la bibliothèque d'un pénitencier doit fournir des services « comparables à ceux qu'offrent les bibliothèques dans la collectivité », afin de répondre « aux besoins des délinquants en documents récréatifs, culturels, spirituels, éducatifs et informatifs ». Mais la réalité est loin de correspondre à cet idéal.

Les gestionnaires d'établissement n'y accordent pas tous la même importance ni les mêmes budgets. Il y a bien certains pénitenciers qui ont des rayons garnis de plusieurs milliers de volumes et qui emploient un bibliothécaire professionnel. Mais dans bien des cas, dont celui des neuf pénitenciers du Québec, ce sont des détenus seuls qui s'en occupent. Les collections sont souvent vieillottes ; les fonds pour les acquisitions, misérables ; les ouvrages adaptés aux autochtones et aux minorités culturelles, insuffisants ; les heures d'ouverture, minimes. Il y a des endroits qui n'ont aucune bibliothèque à proprement parler ; les livres sont placés sur des chariots qu'on pousse à l'occasion dans les unités. La situation s'est encore détériorée ces dernières années, les compressions budgétaires au Service correctionnel ayant entraîné la fermeture ou l'atrophie des services de plusieurs bibliothèques pénitentiaires.

L'enquêteur correctionnel détaille ces carences dans son rapport 2015-2016, rendu public en octobre. « Malgré les lignes directrices nationales, écrit-il, il y a beaucoup de variations régionales dans la manière dont les bibliothèques de détenus dans les pénitenciers fédéraux sont gérées et financées. » À ses yeux, ces disparités sont « inexplicables et inacceptables ». L'enquêteur exhorte le Service correctionnel à redoubler d'efforts pour promouvoir la littératie derrière les barreaux ; il recommande notamment de « soutenir davantage les clubs de lecture », de nouer des partenariats avec les bibliothèques municipales pour permettre aux détenus d'y faire des emprunts, et de renouveler celles des prisons.

Et en dehors de la bibliothèque ? Ce peut être compliqué de mettre la main sur des bouquins. Le catalogue national, qui permet aux détenus de commander des effets personnels, comprend des téléviseurs, des vêtements, des articles d'hygiène, mais pas de livres. Pour en acheter, ils doivent en faire la demande au personnel responsable des activités socioculturelles. Les prisonniers ne peuvent pas non plus, passé le premier mois de leur détention, se faire envoyer de livres à leur nom par des gens de l'extérieur, exception faite de leurs proches, si la direction y consent. On veut éviter que de la contrebande ou des messages illicites se cachent entre les pages. Ces envois sont pourtant permis aux États-Unis, tandis qu'au Royaume-Uni l'interdit a été levé en 2015, sur ordre d'un juge qui citait le pouvoir rééducateur de la lecture.

Kirsten Wurmann, bibliothécaire de Winnipeg, en a vu de toutes les couleurs dans l'univers carcéral. Depuis une dizaine d'années, elle se rend dans les prisons provinciales et fédérales de l'Alberta et du Manitoba pour y offrir bénévolement ses services, aidant les détenus à faire des choix parmi les caisses de livres qu'elle recueille pour eux. « J'ai vu une prison provinciale où les livres étaient fourrés dans des sacs-poubelles, et les détenus fouillaient dedans pour trouver de quoi lire, raconte-t-elle. Dans une autre, tout ce qu'il y avait pour 800 hommes, c'étaient six étagères de livres à moitié déchirés. » Kirsten Wurmann a mis sur pied, en 2014, le Prison Library Network, un réseau d'une cinquantaine d'amoureux des livres qui font avancer cette cause au pays. À son initiative, la Fédération canadienne des associations de bibliothèques vient d'adopter une déclaration qui défend le droit des prisonniers à la lecture. « Nos principes directeurs, comme la liberté intellectuelle et l'accès à l'information pour tous, ne s'accordent pas très bien avec les principes correctionnels, fait-elle remarquer. On doit apprendre à travailler dans ce contexte. »

La censure ajoute une autre barrière à l'entrée des livres dans l'enceinte. Officiellement, le Service correctionnel interdit tous les documents qui pourraient compromettre la sécurité (notamment, ceux contenant de l'information détaillée sur la perpétration de crimes, ainsi que le matériel haineux, obscène ou susceptible d'inciter à la violence). Mais ces consignes sont interprétées de manière incohérente, et parfois arbitraire, dans différents établissements. Kirsten Wurmann a vu des membres du personnel carcéral rejeter des livres sur la seule base que leur page couverture était un peu olé olé. « Ça n'a ni rime ni raison, dit-elle. Ça dépend de la personne qui les inspecte. »

La bibliothèque de la prison de Joliette est sans prétention, avec sa collection d'environ 9 000 volumes et son budget d'acquisition situé entre 500 et 1 000 dollars par an, auquel s'ajoutent quelque 300 livres donnés chaque année par des organismes, précise le Service correctionnel. Dans le local lumineux, plus petit qu'une salle de classe, j'ai vu, sur les rayons impeccablement rangés, des romans de Stieg Larsson, Anne Hébert, Michael Crichton, Saint-Exupéry, Françoise Sagan ; des ouvrages sur l'histoire, la politique, la spiritualité ; des recueils de recettes ; un Petit Larousse à reliure brune datant d'un autre siècle. On y trouve aussi deux ordinateurs antiques — sans connexion Internet, proscrite dans tous les pénitenciers —, une imprimante et quelques fougères.

Si ce n'était du sens de l'initiative de Christine, le lieu serait sans doute en plus piteux état. Depuis qu'elle a commencé à y travailler, il y a trois ans, les heures d'ouverture sont passées de trois à neuf par semaine. Épaulée par trois autres détenues, elle a fait le ménage dans l'inventaire désuet, informatisé le catalogue, réclamé des fonds supplémentaires pour les achats. Soucieuse d'amadouer les plus farouches, elle a aussi entièrement repensé l'organisation des rayons, plaçant les ouvrages faciles à lire près de l'entrée, par exemple. Mais en l'absence d'employé affecté spécialement à cette tâche, qui sait ce qu'il adviendra de cet héritage lorsqu'elle sortira de taule, dans quelques années. « Je travaille à passer le flambeau à d'autres femmes », me dit-elle.

Un jour, ce sont peut-être ses œuvres qui trôneront sur une étagère. Car la bibliothécaire au sourire de sphinx écrit des romans : une trilogie, l'histoire d'une fille de bonne famille qui tombe amoureuse d'un mauvais garçon, dont elle vient d'envoyer le premier tome à des éditeurs. Si elle parvient à se faire publier, Christine jure de revenir entre ces murs pour rencontrer ses anciennes compagnes, en tant qu'auteure cette fois.

Peut-on survivre à ce qu'on a été ?

Une fois l'an, le club de lecture reçoit la visite d'un écrivain. En 2015, c'est l'Ontarien Lawrence Hill, auteur d'Aminata, qui s'est déplacé. En ce soir de canicule, les femmes attendent celui qui est devenu la coqueluche du pénitencier : Hervé Gagnon, prolifique auteur de romans historico-fantastiques, connu pour ses séries Vengeance, Malefica et, surtout, Damné.

La rencontre se tient pour l'occasion dans la chapelle, une pièce éclairée aux tubes fluorescents à laquelle des objets hétéroclites — crucifix, capteur de rêves, statue d'ange, fleurs artificielles — n'arrivent pas à insuffler de l'âme. Devant ces femmes qui l'acclament avec une fébrilité adolescente, Hervé Gagnon fanfaronne, évoquant, pour briser la glace, ses chiffres de ventes et les revenus qu'il en tire. Manifestement, il ne sait pas encore à quel auditoire il a affaire. Pendant près de deux heures, elles l'interrogent sur ses techniques narratives, ses méthodes de recherche et ses sources d'inspiration. « Je suis sorti de là complètement sur le cul, me dira-t-il plus tard. Elles avaient dépouillé mes livres avec une minutie que je n'ai pas vue souvent. J'ai été soufflé par la pertinence des questions. Ça a fini par être une expérience profondément humaine. »

Ses écrits trouvent un écho puissant entre ces murs. Certaines femmes, comme Emma*, n'avaient jamais terminé un livre de leur vie avant de tomber sur L'héritage des Cathares, premier tome de la série Damné. « Les 400 pages, je les ai dévorées en quatre jours », lui dit-elle avec un sourire lumineux, émerveillée par le miracle qu'elle découvre. « J'arrêtais plus. J'en oubliais de manger, d'aller dormir ! » Les titres de la tétralogie sont si populaires qu'il faut s'inscrire sur une liste d'attente pour les emprunter à la bibliothèque.

Né avec un signe de malédiction sur le visage, élevé sans amour, le guerrier Gondemar de Rossal a fini par devenir le monstre que tous avaient cru voir en lui. Partout, il sème la terreur et le sang, une effroyable descente aux enfers dont il aura, au prix de cruels sacrifices, la chance de se racheter. Damné, c'est une fable sur la prédestination, le libre arbitre et la rédemption, déguisée en récit d'aventures médiévales. Une série qui demande si on peut jamais échapper à un destin qui semble tracé d'avance ; si le bien et le mal sommeillent en chacun de nous ; si on peut choisir qui on sera ; si on peut survivre à ce qu'on a été.

« Je peux vous faire un commentaire ? » demande Guylaine*, une femme aux grands yeux ahuris dont la lourde peine trahit un sombre passé, en tendant son exemplaire à l'auteur, pendant la séance de dédicaces. « Au début, j'haïssais votre livre. Pis après, ça m'a fait pleurer, j'en ai eu des frissons. Ce que j'ai compris, c'est que malgré toutes les erreurs qu'il a faites, il avait le droit de se pardonner, pis de s'aimer lui-même. »

* Les noms suivis d'un astérisque ont été modifiés, à la demande des femmes, pour préserver leur anonymat.

Cet article a été publié dans le numéro de juillet 2017 de L'actualité.