Black Robe (1985)

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Paperback, 256 pages Published: 1985 Callil-Toibin 200 Best Novels (1950-1999) introduction by: Colm Tóibín Black Robe is the powerful tale of a Jesuit missionary's struggles with the fierce natives of an unforgiving land—and with the heavy burden of his own unforgiving conscience. The story is set in seventeenth-century Canada, an untamed country claimed by the French, controlled by the Jesuits, but belonging to the natives. Father Laforgue sets out on his mission sustained by his faith and his dreams of martyrdom. He is severely tested by the demands of the wilderness, his encroaching deafness, and the temptations of the flesh, but ultimately he survives and triumphs. Black Robe is a tale of adventure and defiance, faith and betrayal, passion and perversity. And, above all, it is a tale of the survival of the human spirit.