Valérie Bah (Carmen Rachitaneau); Kama La Mackerel (Noire Mouliom)

The Rage Letters is a collection of 13 stories by Quebec-based writer and filmmaker Valérie Bah, translated by Mauritian-Canadian multidisciplinary artist Kama La Mackerel. Originally published in French in 2021 by feminist press Les Éditions du remue-ménage, Bah’s stories “create a generous literary voice where it is possible to become multiple people in order to reclaim and reconcile language,” as writer and scholar Stéphane Martelly writes in the preface.

The first story, “Theft,” is addressed to an unnamed “you” who steals and cuts up books to add to their secret stash. They are a “child of a thousand secrets, Prometheus in school clothes, you give these pages a life they could never have expected. A book is just raw material: to dissect, to debone, to create anew.” Their rebelliousness and creativity are interrupted by the narrator’s repeated reminders that they routinely fail “la dictée,” a vocabulary test, which is left untranslated in French, drawing attention to the disciplinary measures of classrooms and language-learning. The mother of “you” knows “that at the root of any institutional mise-en-scène in this country is the stench of discrimination—an understanding that spreads everywhere like maskriti oil.” At the end of the story, we hear “you” speak, so that the last word about failing dictée is in fact a victorious reclamation of the character’s uniqueness amidst the pressure of institutional testing and norms. 

“Theft” sets the tone for the stories that follow, many of which detail the “rage” in the title;  microaggressions, racism, and marginalization are named and reclaimed in the stories of queer Black characters who live life on their own terms. 

“Fille du Roi I” is the first in a cycle of three stories that feature characters who recur throughout the collection. A privilege walk exercise at an equity, diversity, and inclusion workshop serves as the inciting incident that sheds light on the intersection of race and class. Manon, a character who has adopted and raised a Vietnamese daughter with congenital issues, wonders why racialized people complain when “it’s class struggles that matter the most.” Pitting one marginalization against another illuminates how the specificity of different lives is erased in myriad ways. 

In “Fille du Roi III,” another recurring character, Katia, struggles with cramps after getting her period at work during a VIP cocktail party, where she is accused of “parading around in that slutty dress” by the event organizer, Mlle Le Seigneur. Instead of retreating after the insult, Katia “commits her most productive act of her past three years working at the organization when she abruptly dumps the contents of her glass onto the face and cleavage of Mlle Le Seigneur.” Bah’s humour honours the specificity of embodied experiences with an enlivening bluntness. 

In the final story, “Flânage,” the narrator is on a road trip with friends when they receive news that a man named Paul died in a car accident. Marie, one of the group, had met Paul while travelling in Brazil years before, as related in the third story, “Sculptures.” He sexually assaults her and documents their time together without her consent. In a traditional story arc, an event like a death would be a major plot point on which the narrative pivots, but in “Flânage,” it doesn’t threaten the trip of this group, even if the unnamed narrator likes their girlfriend’s toes – suspiciously like Paul.

The Rage Letters is a daring and jubilant work that details the nuanced textures of queer friendship with a discerning, humorous, and powerful voice. Bah is a storyteller like no other.