Once in Canada, Caroline accompanies her parents as they clean banks at night; she experiences racist micro aggressions at school, discovers Québécois popular culture, and explores her love of reading and writing in French. Slowly, the Andean peaks disappear from her drawings. As her family increases their wealth and status—moving to a better apartment every six months in Montreal's working-class east-end neighbourhood and then a house in the suburbs—the fracture between her parents' identity and her own grows. When Caroline realizes an apartment she's partying in is one her mother cleans, the division between her parents' life and her own becomes explicitly clear.

This nuanced coming-of-age autobiographical novel probes the plurality of identity, elucidating the interwoven complexities of immigrating to a new country. As the Andes Disappeared tenderly reflects the journey of millions and is a beautiful ode to family commitment and the importance of home—however layered that may be.

Prizes

Winner of Prix littéraire des Collégiens 2022 (Canada),Short-listed for le Combat national des livres 2021 (Canada),Nominated for Prix des libraires du Quebec 2021 (Canada)

"The power of this largely autobiographical novel lies in its refusal to let anger give rise to gratitude. Nor is gratitude permitted to soften the rage of knowing that the comfort of the rich continues to be built with the egregiously paid labour of those who cannot push back." —Le Devoir

"There are books that make us better people, and Dawson's is among them." —Michel Marc Bouchard, le Combat national des livres de Radio-Canada

"With sensitivity, humour and engaging lucidity, Dawson's autobiographical novel shows us that there are many lived realities and that it is essential to be attentive to everyone's experience." —Marc-Étienne Brien, Librairie Biblairie GGC