Rhea Tregebov is the acclaimed author of eight collections of poetry. Her most recent, Talking to Strangers, won the 2024 Canadian Jewish Literary Award for poetry and was long-listed for the Al Eurithe Purdy Poetry prize. In addition to her poetry, she has published two novels, Rue des Rosiers (2019) and The Knife Sharpener’s Bell (2009). She is also the author of five popular children’s picture books including The Big Storm and What-If Sara, which are set in Winnipeg. She has edited ten anthologies of essays, poetry and fiction, most recently Arguing with the Storm. Her work has received a number of literary prizes, including the Tiny Torgi award (for The Big Storm) as well as the Pat Lowther Award, Prairie Schooner Readers’ Choice Award, and the Malahat Review Long Poem Award for her poetry.

Born in Saskatoon and raised in Winnipeg, Rhea Tregebov received her undergraduate education in Winnipeg. She did postgraduate studies at Cornell and Boston Universities.

For many years she worked as a freelance writer and editor in Toronto, where she also taught creative writing for Ryerson Continuing Education. She was an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of British Columbia, where she taught poetry and translation until her retirement in 2017. She is now an Associate Professor Emerita.

From the Author:

Rue des Rosiers is set in 1982. The protagonist, Sarah, is the youngest of three sisters, and feels as if she's the black sheep of the family. Eldest sister Rose is a talented dancer who is happily married. Middle sister Gail is an activist lawyer. Sarah is working for minimum wage at a garden centre, living on her own in a rooming house in Toronto. She's adrift in her own life, unable to make decisions small or large. When Rose falls prey to clinical depression, the family starts to unravel. After she is fired from her job and has a fight with Gail, Sarah finds herself on an extended holiday in Paris, where her life starts to make sense. But there her path begins to cross that of Laila, her doppleganger. Laila is a young Palestinian woman who bears scars both inside and out and whose life as a housecleaner in Paris could not be further from la vie en rose. As the two young women move closer and closer to a collision, both lives will be radically changed.