"Bitter Bread" by Albert Laberge

In the host of books promoting the ideology of conservation proper to the "literature of the land", few dissidents came to the fore. However, in 1918, Albert Laberge published a book entitled "Bitter Bread", which, far from praising the life of farmers, depicts them instead as ignorant, lazy people, sapped by alcoholism and at the mercy of their basest impulsions.

Falling within the naturalist movement, the novel describes in a blunt manner the dark side of the rustic life of its main characters. Published in part in periodicals, then in a private edition, "Bitter Bread" was long a work condemned and banished by the clergy, before finally being republished in 1972.