Clairvoyants: Between Tarot and Literature – Châtelaine

Combine divinatory art and Quebec literature? Audrée Wilhelmy and 14 other writers have dared with Clairvoyantes. The result is downright fun and inspiring.

Quebec publisher Alto is bold. He throws the box Clairvoyants, which combines literature and the art of divination in a marriage that is out of the ordinary. It’s sort of a poetic version of the tarot deck. Born from the creative impulse of the writer Audrée Wilhelmy (Oss, bend the river), this literary oracle is made up of 45 divination cards and a collection of explanatory texts written by the spellbinding pens of 15 local authors.

“I’ve been interested in tarot since I was a teenager. I explored it in my novel the bloods. And then, I was looking for a project to bring women together around writing. Clairvoyants is the fruit of these two inspirations”, explains Audrée Wilhelmy.

No need to be a fortune-teller to enter this universe. It is above all a fun activity, to be practiced alone or with others, which has the power to provoke reflection or start conversations.

But how does it all work? We first pose a question to Clairvoyants on a subject that concerns us. Three cards are then drawn. Each refers to two texts from the collection: the interpretation of the map and the story inspired by it. These elements will offer some answers to the question we asked ourselves from the outset…

The collection is also a contribution to the edifice of Quebec literature, nourished by writers from various backgrounds, including Dominique Fortier, Marie-Andrée Gill, Perrine Leblanc, Mélikah Abdelmoumen, Élise Turcotte, Hélène Dorion and Véronique Grenier. A great opportunity to discover them or reconnect with them. “I chose women with strong voices, who like to go into an imaginary register”, specifies Audrée Wilhelmy.

At the creation of the visual of the 45 cards, the photographer Justine Latour, who had the field free for the realization of this mandate a thousand leagues from the black and white portraits that she usually signs. “It was very stimulating to get out of my comfort zone. I decided to create bright paintings, in a positive spirit, which contrasts with the rather dark universe of tarot and oracles”, she confides. Clairvoyants will also exist in digital format. It will be possible to draw virtual cards and consult their explanatory texts on clairvoyantes.com.

Clairvoyants – a literary oracle, under the direction of Audrée Wilhelmy, Viola. In bookstores April 5.