The deportation, more than 250 years ago, of French-speaking Acadian settlers from present-day Eastern Canada was a humanitarian disaster, with thousands dying in shipwrecks or succumbing to hunger and disease. The descendants of those who survived would re-establish Acadian communities in eastern Canada and find a new home in Louisiana and eastern Texas, where they established today’s vibrant Cajun culture.
Nova Scotia author and journalist Tyler LeBlanc learned about the expulsions of the 1750s in school, but he never suspected his own family had been caught up in this dark episode of history. His rediscovery of his Acadian roots culminated in his first book, Acadian Driftwood: One Family and the Great Expulsion (Goose Lane Editions). It’s a story of loss and survival that vividly recreates the horrors of the expulsion and meticulously traces the life-and-death struggles of his ancestors.
Read my interview with Tyler in the Southern Review of Books.