Books to make your commute a little creepy

By Shakiya Williams

Spooky season is upon us, and during this time Montreal hums with its own weird, haunting vibes. If you’re anything like me, your fall to-be-read list is already taking shape.

This year, I went on the hunt for new horror by BIPOC and LGBTQ+ writers from Montreal and Quebec—and came up short. I went from bookstore to bookstore, searched online, and even posted on social media asking for recommendations, but couldn’t find enough to build the list I wanted. So, I did what I always do: I went searching for the horror hiding in everything else.

My favourite reads during this season are the ones that evoke a feeling of the uncanny—a quiet dread that settles within me. I don’t need a book to be shelved as horror to feel haunted; in this weather, even thrillers, YA, and realist stories tilt a little darker. I still enjoy a well-timed jumpscare, a bit of gore, and a classic trope or two used with care. But what pulls me in most are the hauntings that reflect where and how we live, stories that I wish there were more of, by queer, Black, and other racialized writers, set in the places we move through every day: metros, bike paths, tunnels, and city squares. Horror, to me, captures something raw and truthful about the world we live in.

With this in mind, I have a few recs to add to your stacks that make everyday places in Montreal feel a little more haunted. If you’re into psychological dread, multiple points of view, crime, YA, or a quieter, slow-burn kind of haunting, I’ve got you. I’ve also paired each book with a location that might make you see the places on your commute a little differently.

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​Coup de Grâce by Sofia Ajram (Penguin Random House, 2025)

📍 The metro

For: Psychological horror readers

Content warning: suicide

Sofia Ajram, a queer Montreal writer, gives us the one book on this list that lives fully in the horror genre—and a recent release at that. Coup de Grâce follows Vicken, who plans to end his life by throwing himself into the St. Lawrence River. Instead, he falls asleep on the metro and wakes at an unfamiliar terminus. When he steps off, the station loops on itself. He searches for an exit through tight corridors and cavernous rooms, but none appear. The longer he wanders, the more it feels like the place wants him to stay. And he’s not alone.

It was hard to go into the metro after this read. I kept thinking about what it would mean to be trapped there with no way out. Tiles, tunnels, fluorescent lights—this book has amazing details, even a dépanneur, with all the snacks you could think of. If you’re into a bit of gore and want something with vivid scenes that paint clear, creepy pictures in your mind, this one is for you.

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Cycling to Asylum by Su J. Sokol (Deux Voiliers Publishing, 2014)

📍 The bike path

For: Fans of multiple perspectives and political dystopia

In Cycling to Asylum, writer and social activist Su J. Sokol imagines a (too) near-future as New York slides into authoritarian rule. History teacher, Laek, can no longer hide his radical past after a violent run-in with the NYPD. He flees with his partner, Janie, and their kids, Siri and Simon. They cross the border by bicycle into Quebec, posing as eco-tourists. In Montreal, they seek asylum and must convince the authorities to grant them refugee status so they can build a new life. The story unfolds through each family member’s point of view.

Despite being written over a decade ago, this book feels uncomfortably close to home. It makes our current political climate and its trajectory feel all too real. When I see bike paths now, I see them as potential escape routes for people. Cycling to Asylum reads like a true story rather than a work of fiction.

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​The Dead of Winter by Peter Kirby (Linda Leith Publishing, 2013)

📍 Cabot Square

For: Crime and mystery buffs

Written by Peter Kirby, best known for his Luc Vanier crime series, The Dead of Winter grounds its mystery in the city’s real streets and systems. It opens on Christmas Eve, when Inspector Vanier is called to investigate the murders of five unhoused people in Montreal. The case drags him through church backrooms, corporate boardrooms, soup kitchens, and back alleys while Montreal gets colder and colder.

This isn’t an abstract fear. It happens, and it happens here. Cabot Square is a place where vulnerable people shelter and spend time, and reading about the fictional murders made the space feel different. The novel highlights the dangers that can arise for our community members when the city fails to protect them. Visibility is not security; a public park can place a target on you for simply existing. And with winter coming, it’s even scarier to know people will have to face the cold while also worrying about staying alive. 

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​The Haunting of Adrian Yates by Markus Harwood-Jones (Metonymy Press, 2023)

📍 Dorchester Square

For: YA lovers

Markus Harwood-Jones, a queer author and longtime advocate for trans representation in YA, delivers a ghost story that’s equal parts tender and unsettling. Adrian plans a low-key summer: Slurpees with his best friend, Zoomer, and trying not to argue with his dad. Then a ghost named Sorel shows up in the graveyard near his building. Sorel gets Adrian in a way no one else does, but his behaviour is unpredictable, and Zoomer is worried. One night, Adrian and Sorel experiment with consensual possession. Adrian is sure he can handle it, until he isn’t. Then Adrian’s summer gets a little less low-key.

We walk among ghosts every day; we just don’t know it. Dorchester Square looks like a simple shortcut through downtown, but it sits over the old Saint-Antoine Catholic cemetery, where thousands of 19th-century Montrealers were buried, including victims of the 1851 Cholera epidemic. Some remains were moved; many stories stayed. After Adrian Yates, the lawn feels thinner under my feet, like there’s more below the city. I catch myself wondering what it would be like if this place could borrow me for a moment, the way Sorel borrows a body, so it could see what Montreal has become. If you walk through quietly enough, you might feel a presence walking with you.

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​The Rage Letters by Val Bah, trans. Kama La Mackerel (Metonymy Press, 2024)

📍 Melrose Tunnel 

For: Fans of slow-burning horror

Val Bah, a Black queer Montreal writer, offers a stunning collection of short stories in The Rage Letters. Translated into English by Kama La Mackerel, a Mauritian-Canadian trans writer and translator, the book follows a circle of Black, queer, and trans friends through work, love, art, and the aftershocks of social violence. Characters recur and braid together; the voice stays intimate, wry, and simmering. In their translator’s note, La Mackerel describes the language itself as “haunted, as if a ghost was attempting to manifest itself in between the words.”

For me, the haunting here is recognition and connection. Many of us Black and queer folks know these quiet rages and survivals, the parts of daily life others never have to notice. That is why the Melrose Tunnel fits. You enter from one neighbourhood and step out in another. Inside, every sound doubles back; outside, the light is a real relief. The tunnel feels like code-switching, and the translation feels like that too: a bridge that carries meaning without smoothing away its edges. After reading The Rage Letters, the hauntings and traumas of colonialism still echo in me, as they do in Bah’s writing. They are a tunnel back to memory, and a tunnel forward to the future I want for us—one where those echoes are heard, held, and answered with care.

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This brings my spooky season book recs to a close. I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for, but I still found the horror I needed—the kind that hides in plain sight, that lingers in a city’s bones long after the story ends. The more I searched, the more Montreal haunted me. If you have recs by Black and other racialised writers in Montreal or Quebec working in horror, send them my way. Until then, I’ll keep finding the creepy in the everyday. Happy reading, and enjoy the season!

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Shakiya Williams (she/they) is an avid horror-intaker and fall lover. She is the publishing assistant at Linda Leith Publishing and sits on the board of ELAN. They’re trying to retire the word emerging from their writer bio and are at work on a horror short-story collection—hoping it makes it a little less hard to find BIPOC horror from Montreal.

Illustration by Katie MacLean.

The post Haunt Me, Montreal appeared first on Read Quebec.

Home is where the books are – this #12aout, discover a book from here!

By Read Quebec Staff

August 12 is Quebec Book Day, known in French as « Le 12 août, j’achète un livre québécois  ». Founded in 2014 by authors Patrice Cazeault & Amélie Dubé, August 12 has since become one of the highest-selling days for bookstores across the province.

Since last year’s celebration, our Quebec-based publishers have released new titles to widespread acclaim: Boum’s The Jellyfish (Pow Pow Press) swept the Eisner Award, Lynd Ward Graphic Novel Prize Honor Book, Doug Wright Nipper Award, Graphic Medicine Award, and more; Val Bah’s Subterrane (Véhicule Press) took home the Amazon First Novel Prize; and, at the time of writing, Drawn & Quarterly has two graphic novels up for Lambda Literary Awards. 

Here at Read Quebec, we’re excited to showcase the latest local literature with a special focus on English-language books published, written, and translated within Quebec. Beyond bestsellers and prizewinners, we’re also eager to share hidden gems and forthcoming titles that may just become your next pageturner. 

Head to ReadQuebec.ca/Books to discover our Fall catalogue, and share your recommendations by tagging us and using the hashtags #12aout  #12aoutjacheteunlivrequebecois and #QuebecBookDay. Looking for inspiration? Get started with some favourites from our team below, or pick up a copy of the new Montreal Review of Books to read about some of the latest releases!

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12 Books for August 12

Malcolm’s Picks

This Rare Earth by Jeremy Thomas Gilmer

Véhicule Press, 2025

From the publisher’s website:

“This Rare Earth is a graphic account of twenty-five years working for some of the largest mining  and engineering companies in the world. Much of this work was conducted in in conflict zones where Jeremy Gilmer supervised the construction of dams, mine tailings structures, and oil and gas facilities. Through personal stories and detailed observations, he brings to life the daily realities of those caught in the crossfire of progress—miners, villagers, and local leaders who grapple with the promises and perils of development.

Gilmer describes nerve-wracking situations dealing with corrupt authorities, natural disasters, and project failure. He writes about his time in Northern Angola at the end of a bloody civil war, discusses building a gold mine in cartel territory in Colombia, and looking for water in the windswept pampa of southern Argentina. He writes about crawling a kilometer into a pipe in the high Andes to inspect damage and about night shifts at a vast Arctic diamond mine. He has driven through a blazing jungle in Eastern Bolivian forest fires and survived tense standoffs with armed Pork-knockers, or South American itinerant miners.

Gilmer writes from a place rarely heard from in the debate: an industry linked not only to the environmental challenges we face as a species, but to the very systems our lives— and economy—depend on. This Rare Earth is an unsparing, thought-provoking, and frankly confessional dive into the unseen costs of our technological and industrial addictions.”

Buy this book

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Denniveniquity by D. Boyd

Conundrum Press, 2025

From the publisher’s website:

“A candid and personal exploration of junior high in the 1970s, with enough vulnerability to make readers squirm, laugh, and maybe even fall in love (but only for now).

From awkward first kisses to changing bodies with an agenda all their own, puberty is not for the faint of heart. But hitting puberty in a small Canadian city where your father knows everyone and your on-again-off-again boyfriend quite literally lives on “the wrong side of the tracks”? That comes with an extra set of super-charged emotions and embarrassing moments—and Dawn is no stranger to any of it.

Denniveniquity is a darkly humorous coming-of-age graphic memoir by D. Boyd, creator of the award-nominated Chicken Rising. For this new tale, Boyd mined her old diaries and brought her 1970s teen years back to life, rekindling the excitement, joy, and anguish of these formative life experiences.”

Buy this book

Read the mRb review

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Gesticulating Gentrification by Rick Trembles

Conundrum Press, 2025

From the publisher’s website:

“Cartoonist and musician Rick Trembles grew up in the suburbs of Montreal, in the house his father, Canadian Golden Age cartoonist Jack Tremblay (Crash Carson), paid for as a commercial illustrator. Encouraged by his father’s cartooning, inspired by underground comic artists like Robert Crumb, and propelled by the DIY ethos of the burgeoning punk scene, Rick gave in to his own natural drive to create and built a life full of art and music.

But the comics industry had changed since Jack Tremblay found success, and Rick followed his heart into alt-comics. Mainstream cartoonists were already making less money, and alt-comic artists were making even less from their art—if anything at all. When Rick first moved out, he couch-hopped from one messy band rehearsal space to another, finally settling on a small apartment above a pool hall, where he worked on zines and wrote music—until he wasn’t able to make rent. This is just the first stop in a series of insecure housing situations made worse by gentrification.

In Gesticulating Gentrification, Trembles provides a close and honest look at the challenges faced by people living in precarious housing, the constant threat of being forced out by gentrification, and the social and health problems that result from all of it. But this graphic memoir isn’t only about social issues—it also provides a rare glimpse at a bygone version of Montreal and the DIY culture that thrived there.”

Buy this book

Read the mRb review

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Priscilla’s Picks

Annapurna’s Bounty by Veena Gokhale

Dundurn Press, 2025

From the publisher’s website:

“Annapurna, the Indian Goddess of Nourishment, presides over a rich harvest of stories reimagined for the twenty-first-century palate. Here, food manifests as ploy, bargain, symbolic communication, a bone of contention, a lesson, as it weaves through the lives of a cast of characters — kings and commoners, witches and goddesses, gurus and bandits, refugees and travellers.

Each story is followed by a vegetarian recipe offered up by a character. Gathered from the four corners of India, there are well-known dishes like nourishing dal and irresistible mango lassi, novelties like avial and Bengali khichari, as well as a new twist on beloved foods, such as samosas with a peas and coconut filling.

Infused with humane values, expertly blending the timeless and the contemporary, the magical and the everyday, encompassing East, West, and the in-between, this fusion of fiction and food will delight and inspire.”

Buy this book

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All Kidding Aside by Jean-Christophe Réhel

QC Fiction, 2025

From the publisher’s website:

“Louis, a young queer man, lives in Pointe-aux-Trembles, in Montreal’s east end, with his rap-obsessed, schizophrenic brother and their terminally ill father. While working at a Tim Horton’s, Louis dreams of becoming a stand-up comedian. Delivered in short, addictive chapters, All Kidding Aside deftly juggles themes of love, class, and grief with poetic mockery and spare, electric banter.”

Pre-order this book

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A Different Hurricane by H. Nigel Thomas

Dundurn Press, 2025

From the publisher’s website:

“Two gay men with a lifetime of secrets face their insular, homophobic island’s rancour.

Growing up in neighbouring villages on the tiny island nation of St Vincent, teenage best friends Gordon and Allen are secret lovers until they are forced apart their community’s traditional expectations and their fear of how others will react. They each complete their university studies abroad, encountering worlds where there is less hostility toward LGBTQ+ people. Tempted to stay, both men ultimately return home, hiding who they are.

Their secret lives come at the expense of others, and Gordon’s wife, Maureen, is the first to be irreparably harmed. She has confided her secrets to an accusatory journal, and it is now up to Gordon to keep it from the local media and the unforgiving eyes of the authorities. If the truth is revealed, he and Allan will be the next victims.”

Buy this book

Read the mRb review

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Alexandra’s Picks

Horsefly by Mireille Gagné, translated by Pablo Strauss

Coach House Books, 2025

From the publisher’s website:

“In 1942, a young entomologist, Thomas, is sent to a remote island to work on biological weapons for the Allied military. The scientists live like prisoners while they produce anthrax and look for the perfect virus carrier among the island’s many insects.

Sixty years later, in the same region of Quebec, a heat wave unleashes swarms of horseflies while humans fall prey to strange flights of rage. Theodore is living a simple life, working double shifts and drinking to forget, when a horsefly bite stirs him from his apathy. He impulsively kidnaps his grandfather, whose dementia has him living in the past on Grosse Île. 

The horseflies, meanwhile, know a few secrets…

Loosely based on historical fact, Horsefly is a terrifying tale about the ways in which we try to dominate nature, and how nature will, inevitably, wreak retribution upon us.”

Buy this book

Read the mRb review

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When the Pine Needles Fall by Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel

Between the Lines Books, 2024

From the publisher’s website:

“There have been many things written about Canada’s violent siege of Kanehsatà:ke and Kahnawà:ke in the summer of 1990, but When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance is the first book from the perspective of Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel, who was the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) spokesperson during the siege. When the Pine Needles Fall, written in a conversational style by Gabriel with historian Sean Carleton, offers an intimate look at Gabriel’s life leading up to the 1990 siege, her experiences as spokesperson for her community, and her work since then as an Indigenous land defender, human rights activist, and feminist leader.

More than just the memoir of an extraordinary individual, When the Pine Needles Fall offers insight into Indigenous language, history, and philosophy, reflections on our relationship with the land, and calls to action against both colonialism and capitalism as we face the climate crisis. Gabriel’s hopes for a decolonial future make clear why protecting Indigenous homelands is vital not only for the survival of Indigenous peoples, but for all who live on this planet.”

Buy this book

Read the mRb review

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The War You Don’t Hate by Blaise Ndala, translated by Dimitri Nasrallah

Véhicule Press, 2024

From the publisher’s website:

“In Blaise Ndala’s magnificent second novel, originally published as Sans Capote Ni Kalachnikov in 2017, the paths of a Canadian documentary filmmaker and two former rebel soldiers from the Congo collide in this searing revenge tale about those who profit from the misery of others.

Los Angeles, 2002. Véronique Quesnel accepts the Best Documentary Oscar for “Sona: Rape and Terror in the Heart of Darkness,” basking in the praise of her privileged audience. She has drawn attention to “the center of gravity that is Black tragedy,” which attracted her away from her life in Montreal, and to the harrowing story of Sona, a young woman who escaped sex slavery. But this lauded film has also shone a dangerous spotlight on Véronique herself. In the Great Lakes region of Africa, Master Corporal Red Ant and his cousin Baby Che are stalking the remnants of the Second Congo War – the deadliest conflict since World War II. In search of truth and vengeance, their obsession now has a name.”

Buy this book

Read the mRb review

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Rebecca’s Picks

Strangers Need Strange Moments Together: Designing Interaction for Public Spaces by Mouna Andraos & Melissa Mongiat

Set Margins, 2025

From the publisher’s website:

“Mouna Andraos and Melissa Mongiat—together with their team at Daily tous les jours—have been creating celebrated interactive art and narrative experiences for public spaces around the world for over 15 years. Their groundbreaking work is part of an emergent practice that combines technology, storytelling, performance, and placemaking to build a new infrastructure for the human spirit.

In Strangers Need Strange Moments Together, Andraos and Mongiat invite a broad range of readers—fellow practitioners, urbanists, policy makers, educators, and engaged citizens—to take a joyful approach to building resilient urban communities and re-enchanting public space. 

In times of unprecedented pace of urban growth, with increasing loneliness and division, they shed light on the importance of moving beyond purely data-driven urban planning methodologies—which prioritize productivity, efficiency, and automation—and forging new modes of public interaction. Cities must be spaces for the whimsical, unexpected, and weird, and for the wasted time and strange moments of serendipitous encounter. Andraos and Mongiat use the raw material of the “daily everyday” to propose new models of living together in the 21st century, and to foreground the dimensions of life that characterize what it means to be human in the first place. 

Building on the work of thinkers like Jane Jacobs, William H. Whyte, and Jan Gehl, whose writings on the dynamics and social life of public spaces put the focus back on humans, this book is a  journal, a series of case studies and engaging thinking.”

Buy this book

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The Third Solitude by Benjamin Libman

Published by Dundurn Press, 2025

From the publisher’s website:

“What is the past? How can we let it speak on its own terms, without forcing it into the categories of history? In The Third Solitude, Benjamin Libman gathers and weaves the threads of multiple pasts — of his community, of his family, and of himself — in an attempt to escape the inadequate narratives around Zionism that he grew up with, and to create nothing short of a new paradigm.

Across a series of interconnected memories, Libman leads us through the many fragments that make a life, unafraid to question deeply cherished beliefs about Jewish identity, and seeks to reconcile his own values with those inculcated in him. Along the way, he casts aside tired tropes and shores together the pieces of a new way of looking toward the future.”

Buy this book

Read the mRb review

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Sentence by Mikhail Iossel

Published by Linda Leith Publishing, 2025

From the publisher’s website:

“In Sentence, Mikhail Iossel performs a remarkable juggling act between genres and countries. Can you write a “Russian” sentence in English? The author has found a perfect syntactical solution to the opposition of past and present in this groundbreaking collection of one-sentence stories: everything is simultaneous, breathless, in a dizzying spin of memory and imagination. The past and the present are inseparable—but the sentence is here, as a celebration of linguistic freedom and virtuosity.”

Buy this book

Read the mRb review

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Featured Books

A Different Hurricane

Fiction

H. Nigel Thomas

All Kidding Aside

Fiction

Jean-Christophe Réhel, translated by Neil Smith

Annapurna’s Bounty

Fiction

Veena Gokhale

Denniveniquity

Graphic novel

D. Boyd

Gesticulating Gentrification

Graphic novel

Rick Trembles

Horsefly

Fiction

Mireille Gagné, translated by Pablo Strauss

Sentence

Fiction

Mikhail Iossel

Strangers Need Strange Moments Together

Nonfiction

Mouna Andraos & Melissa Mongiat

The Third Solitude

Memoir, Nonfiction

Benjamin Libman

The War You Don’t Hate

Fiction

Blaise Ndala

This Rare Earth

Nonfiction

Jeremy Thomas Gilmer

When the Pine Needles Fall: Indigenous Acts of Resistance

Nonfiction

Katsi’tsakwas Ellen Gabriel, with Sean Carleton

No results found.

The post On August 12, I’m Buying a Quebecois Book! appeared first on Read Quebec.

“Every spring, a move,” Gabrielle Roy wrote in her 1945 classic Bonheur d’occasion (The Tin Flute). She was referring to Moving Day, Quebec’s annual game of musical chairs but with homes, held on May 1 back then and July 1 since 1973.

Moving Day has been a tradition in Quebec longer than Canada has been a country. But now, Moving Day is dying. As rents surge and apartment vacancies plummet in Montreal and across Quebec, more and more people are opting to stay put and avoid the hunt for a new home. In 2018, 18.6 percent of apartments in Quebec changed hands. Last year, only 11.6 percent did, representing a nearly 40 percent decline.

I, for one, mourn the day’s diminishing presence. As a twenty-something in Montreal in the 2010s, I moved six times in five years, usually on or around Moving Day. Each time, my roommates and I ferried our belongings by foot and bus across downtown, the Plateau, or Mile End, bringing with us a bevy of rolling suitcases and as much furniture as we could carry in pursuit of a place that was cheaper, bigger, or closer to the metro. Moving on July 1 was always a mad circus. But it was also an opportunity: a chance to snag free furniture left on the street by past tenants, or a chance at new beginnings with a new permutation of roommates. Fondly, I look back on the chaos and camaraderie it inspired.

There is something to be said about the decline of such a distinctly Quebecois tradition, especially when it’s the result of a housing crisis fueled by decades of public neglect. While turning to fiction can’t solve the problem, it can inspire solutions. With that in mind, here are five books that explore the caprices of the housing market here, now, and into the future.

Our Lady of Mile End by Sarah Gilbert (Anvil Press, 2023)

May Our Joy Endure by Kev Lambert, translated by Donald Winkler (Biblioasis, 2024)

Quebec’s latest literary darling, Kev Lambert, released May Our Joy Endure to rave reviews here and abroad, winning France’s 2023 Prix Médicis. The novel’s premise? Architect-billionaire Céline Wachowski is on the cusp of realizing her crowning achievement: an architectural megaproject in the heart of her hometown of Montreal. But her aspirations soon run aground as public opinion turns against her for her disregard of the surrounding area’s social fabric, already frayed by years of gentrification. Brilliantly translated into English by Donald Winkler, this is a biting, incisive satire—at times hilarious, at others devastating, and always marked by Lambert’s unflinching gift for lyricism.

The Bigamist by Felicia Mihali, translated by Linda Leith (Linda Leith Publishing, 2025)

“In Bucharest,” writes Felicia Mihali, “an apartment would be furnished by successive generations, over a period of years. Here in Montreal, an apartment came together in days.” When The Bigamist’s unnamed narrator decides to move with her husband from Romania to Montreal to pursue a master’s in comparative literature, she finds her hopes dashed as she moves from one crummy apartment to another. Soon, she begins an affair with Roman, leaving her torn between two lovers and two countries to call home. Translated by Linda Leith, the English version expertly captures the dry humour of the narrator’s voice, as well as the deep sense of uprootedness at the heart of this and so many other immigrant stories.

Gesticulating Gentrification by Rick Trembles (Conundrum Press, 2025)

Rick Trembles’s graphic memoir Gesticulating Gentrification depicts an artist’s never-ending saga to keep his rent down and eke out a living. It chronicles his life over five homes in four areas: Saint-Henri, Saint-Lambert (where he moves briefly back in with his father), the Plateau, Saint-Henri again, and finally Parc-Ex, where he eventually resigns himself to accepting a higher-than-normal rent increase and becoming an “agent of gentrification.” Through it all, he faces myriad threats: house fires, cockroach and rat infestations, and shady landlords with shady practices. Written in a clipped, matter-of-fact style with Trembles’ signature punk aesthetic, this is a book that lays bare the ways in which urban revitalization efforts can fail those on the margins and empower those who exploit them. Trembles is an imperfect protagonist, but those imperfections help him avoid coming across as overly didactic, helping cast a bright light on a bleak subject.

Subterrane by Valérie Bah (Véhicule Press, 2024)

Winner of the 2025 Amazon Canada First Novel Award, Valérie Bah’s Subterrane explores life in New Stockholm, a city where the divide between rich and poor is taken to its extreme. The spotlight hangs over Cipher Falls, a polluted wasteland that’s one of New Stockholm’s last affordable neighbourhoods, home to struggling artists, activists, and working-class folks—all pushed further and further to the city’s margins by the forces of capital. In some respects, Subterrane is reminiscent of H. G. Wells’s sci-fi classic The Time Machine and its exploration of class division. Yet in others, this is a startlingly original book that interrogates the many forms structural violence can assume—classism, racism, homophobia, transphobia—through the Black and Queer characters to whom it lends a voice.

Will Moving Day become a thing of the past? It’s unlikely it will disappear completely. But it might evolve, as it has in the past. After all, this isn’t the first housing crisis Quebecers have endured. Like us, the characters in Gabrielle Roy’s Bonheur d’occasion felt the stress of finding a home amid an acute shortage. They, too, complained about the cost of rent: seventeen dollars a month for a family of twelve.

J.T. Wickham is a writer, communications officer of the Quebec Writers’ Federation, and the web designer for Quist, a literary journal for Quebec youth. He lives in Montreal.

Illustration by Oliver Gadoury.

Featured Books

Gesticulating Gentrification

Graphic novel

Rick Trembles

May Our Joy Endure

Fiction

Kevin Lambert, translated by Donald Winkler

Our Lady of Mile End

Fiction

Sarah Gilbert

Subterrane

Fiction

Valérie Bah

The Bigamist

Fiction

Felicia Mihali, translated by Linda Leith

No results found.

The post 5 Books to Mourn Moving Day’s Decline appeared first on Read Quebec.

The Montreal pools are officially open!

Whether you’re reading poolside or cooling off on the sidelines, here are some books featuring Montreal swim spots (and some parks) for you to read in situ. 

Swimming Studies by Leanne Shapton (reprinted by Picador, 2025)

Piscine du Vieux Cégep de Montréal

Water is elemental, it’s what we’re made of, what we can’t live within or without. Trying to define what swimming means to me is like looking at a shell sitting in a few feet of clear, still water. There it is, in sharp focus, but once I reach for it, breaking the surface, the ripples refract the shell. It becomes five shells, twenty-five shells, some smaller, some larger, and I blindly feel for what I saw perfectly before trying to grasp it.

Sun of a Distant Land by David Bouchet, translated by Claire Rothman (Véhicule Press, 2017)

Parc Pélican

Bus or bike up rue Masson to discover Parc Pelican, a hidden gem off of the metro line. While the pool itself famously features in Denis Villeneuve’s Incendies (based on the play of the same name by Lebanese-Canadian playwright Wadji Mouawad, translated into English as Scorched by Linda Gaboriau for Playwrights Canada Press), the park also features heavily in David Bouchet’s Sun of a Distant Land, written from the perspective of a young boy whose family has recently immigrated from Senegal.

We went to Pélican Park, a big park not far from our home with a hill and a swimming pool. There were children there. Mère didn’t want us to go to the pool alone, even though there were lifeguards, so sometimes we asked her to come with us, on Saturdays when she had some time. She stayed at the poolside, keeping an eye on how we behaved, because the lifeguards kept an eye on the swimming. Swimming pools don’t charge money in Montreal, so my parents couldn’t refuse.

Les noyades secondaires by Maxime Raymond Bock (Le cheval d’août, 2017)

Piscine Jean-Drapeau, Piscine Rosemont, Piscine Gadbois

For those looking to read in French, the stories in Maxime Raymond Bock’s 2017 collection share the common waters of various Montreal pools: piscine Gadbois, la piscine de l’île Sainte-Hélène, piscine Rosemont, and of course the pictured piscine du parc Jean-Drapeau. If you want an introduction to Bock’s works in English, check out this interview with Mélissa Bull, editor at QC Fiction and translator of several of Bock’s works into English. 

Je sentais mon pouls dans mon cuir chevelu. Je me suis assis sur un fauteuil, j’ai levé la tête pour dégager mon cou, et revu du fond de la piscine Rosemont la surface agitée par les vagues, un rectangle halogène où se stratifiaient les ombres et volaient des corps nus et gracieux qui s’enfonçaient lentement, un peu empêchés dans leurs mouvements par la résistance de l’eau, et qui descendaient jusqu’à moi avant de remonter inévitablement. C’était un de ces moments où les entraîneurs nous laissaient jouer plutôt que de nous faire suer comme à l’habitude.

My Neighbour’s Bikini by Jimmy Beaulieu, translated by Kerry Ann Cochrane (Conundrum Press, 2014)

Parc Laurier

A heat wave not unlike today’s causes a blackout in the Plateau. With the metro down, two neighbours head home on foot, and decide to spend the afternoon at the neighbourhood pool. A simple story told in pencil and grey wash, Jimmy Beaulieu’s My Neighbour’s Bikini is a feel-good and unpretentious meet-cute that captures the serendipity of Montreal summers. 

From My Neighbour’s Bikini.

Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O’Neill (HarperCollins, 2006)

Piscine Schubert

Heather O’Neill’s debut novel spans all corners of Montreal, so it’s no surprise that wayward protagonist Baby frequently finds herself at the city’s pools. Some clues in the novel suggest the indoor pool piscine Schubert, though through Baby’s eyes the city’s topography is much less straightforward. 

When we got to the pool, Theo refused to take his T-shirt off and just jumped in the water with it on. He did bombs off the side of the pool, trying to land on other people. He ripped this little kid’s goggles off his head and ran to the other side of the pool, laughing. He put them on while the kid cried and begged for them back. The little kid went and reported him to the lifeguard, who finally got down off his ladder and walked over to us.

Bonus: “Asana,” from the collection Black Tulips by Claire Rothman (Oberon Press, 1999)

Westmount YMCA

A short story you can read in the time it takes to dry off. Bodies of water appear across Claire Rothman’s fiction – the St. Lawrence, Lac Echo – but it’s the chlorinated waters of the Westmount Y in the short story “Asana” that put her 1999 collection Black Tulips on this list. 

Daniel was still undressing so she slipped into the water. It was colder than she’d imagined, perhaps in contrast to the stifling air, and she stood for a while letting her lower body acclimatize. After a minute, she moistened her goggles with her tongue, slipped them over her bathing cap and submerged herself completely. The pool bottom was turquoise and every time she went under she felt she was entering an entirely new and alien, clean world. 

Alexandra Sweny is associate publisher of the Montreal Review of Books. She likes baseball caps and mass market paperbacks.

Illustration by Sara Prune.

The post Dive Into Local Lit appeared first on Read Quebec.

By Read Quebec Staff

This #12aout, discover a book from here!

August 12 is Quebec Book Day, known in French as « Le 12 août, j’achète un livre québécois  ». Founded in 2014 by authors Patrice Cazeault & Amélie Dubé, August 12 has since become one of the highest-selling days for bookstores across the province.

Not only does 2024 mark the day’s tenth anniversary, it’s also been a big year for Quebecois books: Kate Beaton’s Ducks from Drawn & Quarterly continues to top charts as the best-selling title by a Canadian publisher, Catherine Leroux’s The Future won the Canada Reads 2024 competition, and Montreal-born author Sarah Bernstein’s Study for Obedience took home this year’s Giller prize. Meanwhile, off the page and to the screen, the One eRead Canada campaign made Dimitri Nasrallah’s Hotline freely accessible as an audio- and eBook throughout the month of April. Across genres and across formats, readers around the world are discovering and devouring Quebecois literature, and we couldn’t be more thrilled.

Here at Read Quebec, we’re excited to showcase the latest local literature with a special focus on English-language books published, written, and translated within Quebec. Beyond bestsellers and prizewinners, we’re also eager to share hidden gems and forthcoming titles that may just become your next pageturner. 

Head to ReadQuebec.ca/Books to discover our Fall catalogue, and share your recommendations by tagging us and using the hashtags #12aout  #12aoutjacheteunlivrequebecois and #QuebecBookDay. Looking for inspiration? Get started with some favourites from our team below, or pick up a copy of the new Montreal Review of Books to read about some of the latest releases!

12 Books for August 12

Malcolm’s Picks

Mood Swings by Frankie Barnet

Penguin Random House Canada, 2024

From the publisher’s website:

“In a pre-apocalyptic world not unlike our own, a young Instagram poet starts an affair with a California billionaire who’s promised a time machine that will make everything normal again—whatever that means.”

Buy this book

Nunavik by Michel Hellman

Éditions Pow Pow, 2016

From the publisher’s website:

“Author Michel Hellman meets with his editor Luc Bossé and casually promises to write a sequel to his best-selling book Mile End. But the Montréal neighborhood, with its trendy cafés and gluten-free bakeries, doesn’t seem half as inspiring as it used to be. Part memoir and part documentary, Nunavik follows Hellman on a trek through Northern Quebec as he travels to Kuujjuaq, Puvirnituk, Kangiqsujuaq and Kangirsurk, meeting members of the First Nations, activists, hunters and drug dealers along the way.”

Buy this book

C’est ton carnage, Simone by Chloë Rolland

Del Busso éditeur, 2024

From the publisher’s website:

“Griffintown est sur le point d’être rasé. Le compte à rebours a débuté pour deux immeubles aux destins croisés : un petit hôtel et un ancien club de boxe. D’un côté, Béatrice, de l’autre, Simone.

«En traversant le viaduc, elle rêvait déjà de frapper dans le sac de toutes ses forces, de mimer les gestes d’un combat, même perdu d’avance, même sans adversaire, sauf le monde entier qui rageait contre ses tempes.»

Buy this book

Nived’s Picks

Do You Remember Being Born?, by Sean Michaels

Penguin Random House Canada, 2023

From the publisher’s website:

“Marian Ffarmer is a world-renowned poet and a legend in the making—but only now, at 75 years old, is she beginning to believe in the security of her successes. Unfortunately, a poet’s accomplishments don’t necessarily translate to capital, and as her adult son struggles to buy his first home, her confidence in her choices begins to fray. Marian’s pristine life of mind—for which she’s sacrificed nearly all personal relationships, from romance to friendship to motherhood—has come at a cost.”

Buy this book

Like Every Form of Love by Padma Viswanathan

Penguin Random House Canada, 2023

From the publisher’s website:

“From the Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist, a gripping exploration of class, race, friendship, sexuality, what an author owes her subject and what it means to be a good person—all wrapped up in a riveting Canadian true crime story.”

Buy this book

Botanica Drama by Thom

Éditions Pow Pow, 2024

From the publisher’s website:

“After rising day after day for billions of years, the Sun — recovering from a bit too much celestial partying the night before — makes a fateful decision to stay in bed. With the Earth plunged into darkness, everyone from Philomène the flower to Death itself face dire consequences, trapped in an everlasting winter and surrounded by mysterious creatures that have emerged from the shadows. Can anything make the Sun shine again?”

Buy this book

Alexandra’s Picks

The Philistine by Leila Marshy

Linda Leith Publishing, 2018

From the publisher’s website:

“Nadia Eid doesn’t know it yet, but she’s about to change her life. It’s the end of the ‘80s and she hasn’t seen her Palestinian father since he left Montreal years ago to take a job in Egypt, promising to bring her with him. But now she’s twenty-five and he’s missing in action, so she takes matters into her own hands. Booking a short vacation from her boring job and Québecois boyfriend, she calls her father from the Nile Hilton in downtown Cairo. But nothing goes as planned and, stumbling around, Nadia wanders into an art gallery where she meets Manal, a young Egyptian artist who becomes first her guide and then her lover. “

Buy this book

Portrait of a Body by Julie Delporte, trans. Helge Dascher and Karen Houle

Drawn & Quarterly, 2024

From the publisher’s website:

“As she examines her life experience and traumas with great care, Delporte faces the questions about gender and sexuality that both haunt and entice her. Deeply informed by her personal relationships as much as queer art and theory, Portrait of a Body is both a joyous and at times hard meditation on embodiment—a journey to be reunited with the self in an attempt to heal pain and live more authentically.”

Buy this book

Dandelion Daughter by Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, trans. Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch

Esplanade Books, 2023

From the publisher’s website:

“Dandelion Daughter is an intimate portrait of growing up having been assigned the wrong sex at birth. Set against the windswept countryside of the remote Charlevoix region some five hours north of Montreal, Boulianne-Tremblay’s autobiographical novel immortalizes her early years as an alienated boy trapped in a world of small-town values.”

Buy this book

Rebecca’s Picks

Good Want by Domenica Martinello

Coach House Books, 2024

From the publisher’s website:

“Exploring the value and shame ascribed to our desires both silly and serious – artistic, superficial, spiritual, relational – these poems grapple with deeply rooted questions: How can there be a relationship between goodness and godliness, if god is a character with shifting allegiances and priorities? Is clarity worth the pain of redefining your experience of the world? Is privacy the same as secrecy the same as deceit? Each caveat becomes a prayer, ritual, invocation, dream, or confession, requiring a blind faith that feels increasingly more impossible to sustain.”

Buy this book

Here Is Still Here by Sivan Slapak

Linda Leith Publishing, 2024

From the publisher’s website:

“Isabel, raised in a family of post-war Jewish immigrants in Canada, embarks on a journey to find love, purpose and home, navigating between Montreal and Jerusalem. In Here Is Still Here, Sivan Slapak explores human connection and identity with compassion and wit, reminding us that no matter how far you go, you remain yourself.”

Buy this book

Study for Obedience by Sarah Bernstein

Penguin Random House, 2023

From the publisher’s website:

“A young woman moves from the place of her birth to the remote northern country of her forebears to be housekeeper to her brother, whose wife has recently left him.”

Buy this book

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The post Quebec Book Day 2024 / On August 12, I’m Buying a Quebecois Book! appeared first on Read Quebec.

We’ve been treated to a wonderful array of books for young readers this year. Here’s my hand-picked selection of ten 2023 favourites published in Canada.

Garden of Lost Socks by Esi Edugyan

Illustrated by Amelie Dubois

HarperCollins Canada

Over eight sleepless years of being a parent, I have amassed the most stupefyingly large collection of unmatched socks. Once in a while, I will spread the lonely hundreds across my living room floor in hopes of finding their mate. But it’s a hopeless endeavour. After an hour or so, I’ll walk away dejected, uttering the existential question, “Where do all the socks go!?” This is the question that drives Akosua, the self-proclaimed “Exquirologist” (finder of lost things), and Max, a budding neighbourhood journalist, in two-time Giller Prize winner Esi Edugyan’s debut picture book, Garden of Lost Socks. They band together in search of the missing match to Max’s special pair gifted to him by his nana. This is a smart yet understated book that celebrates curiosity, community, and the simple joy of noticing. It’s easy to fall in love with Amelie Dubois’ wide-eyed characters. And when Max’s sock is found, we (finally!) learn the true purpose of a lost sock: to make the world a little warmer. 

Like a Hurricane by Jonathan Bécotte

Translated by Jonathan Kaplansky

Orca Book Publishers

Like a Hurricane by Jonathan Bécotte uses concrete-poetry-like typographical effects to tell a first-person tale of coming out. This is a book about young love and lust, broken hearts and best friends, the oppressiveness of gender norms and the weight of keeping secrets. As the narrator conjures the courage to tell his parents he’s gay, he feels like a hurricane, building in strength: “I’m a rain shower. I drench my pillow with the emotions that I hold back all day. The ones I hide in the gym, in the too long corridors, in the classrooms where we’re placed in alphabetical order.” In the original French, Comme une Ouragon was nominated for the Governor General’s Award for Literature in 2021. The English translation by Jonathan Kaplansky makes an important book accessible to a new young adult audience, using its experimental form and courageous message to inspire self-love and acceptance. 

Mr. S: A First Day of School Book by Monica Arnaldo

HarperCollins Canada

In Mr. S: A First Day of School Book, written and illustrated by Monica Arnaldo, a group of kindergarteners find themselves alone in their classroom on their first day of school. They soon come to suspect that their teacher may in fact be the ham sandwich on the desk at the front of the room. Curious but unperturbed, these resourceful youngsters don’t waste any of their day in idleness and move swiftly through their lessons by reciting the alphabet (“C is for club sandwich”) and performing a rousing rendition of “Mary Had a Little LambHam.” While the kids care for themselves under the watchful eye of the sandwich, something strange is happening outside the classroom window. What may or may not be their real teacher is having some car trouble, and neither the pizza delivery person, nor a brigade of firefighters and some stray racoons can make it better. Mr. S earned its spot on my list for its many merits – and to thank the teachers in Quebec’s public school system for their work and dedication. They deserve the chuckle this book delivers, and so much more. Though published in 2022, I also recommend Arnaldo’s Are You a Cheeseburger? It remains a favourite of the young readers in my home.

The Magic Cap by Mireille Messier

Illustrated by Charlotte Parent

Milky Way Picture Books

The Magic Cap by Mireille Messier (also published in French as Le Bonnet Magique) is a story rooted in the rich traditions of folklore and fairy tales. In this world, two children – Isaura and Arlo – live alone in the woods with their pet hedgehog, Crispin. When Crispin falls ill, the children devise a plan to lure a gnome to heal him, using their meagre rations as bait. As charming as the gnomes are sly, this story articulates the sadness and worry we feel when a loved one is sick and explores the hope and camaraderie of caring. Illustrator Charlotte Parent casts this innocent fantasy world in a gentle palette. For those who still truly believe in magic, this book will make a great gift.

Grand Chief Salamoo Cook is Coming to Town! by Tomson Highway

Illustrated by Delphine Renon

The Secret Mountain

Montreal-based publishing house The Secret Mountain has cornered the musical storybook market. Grand Chief Salamoo Cook is Coming to Town! is composed of a story and songs by renowned Canadian multidisciplinary artist Tomson Highway and illustrated energetically by Delphine Renon. In broad strokes, this is a book about crowd psychology. When Weeskits Jackson, the smallest rabbit among thousands, learns that the Grand Chief of all rabbits is coming to town to host a contest, he can’t wait to tell everyone about it. The prize is Waaskee-choose juice, known for its healing qualities. As Weeskits’ sister-in-law is unwell, he’s determined to win the juice and cure her. He throws himself into the game – which is quite literally a rabbit throwing contest – and things only get wackier from there. I recommend this book because I’ve not read anything like it before. As a non-Cree speaker, I gained some Woods Cree vocabulary through the text, with the audio version performed in Cree by Angel Baribeau, Moe Clark, Alexandre Désilets, and Coral Egan, and by Plains Cree actor Jimmy Blais serving as bonus fun.

Skating Wild on an Inland Sea by Jean E. Pendziwol

Illustrated by Todd Stewart

House of Anansi Press

My pick for the standout children’s book of the year is Skating Wild on an Inland Sea, a quiet tale about two children who venture out bravely alone for an open-air skate on the majestic Lake Superior – also called by its Ojibwe name, Gichigami. It’s rare to find a children’s book in verse as captivating as this. Author Jean E. Pendziwol weaves the scenes with a poet’s loom: “A pair of ravens croak at the / top of a pine, / and chick-a-dee-dee-dees / greet us from the branches of birch and alder. / A blue jay scolds— / thief thief thief! / We laugh and tell him / we’ve only come to steal / this moment— / turquoise ice, / the wind, / a memory.” The illustrations are as attractive as the writing style. Todd Stewart’s hand captures the stark beauty of a winter’s morning and the hushed majesty of rising light. To look at this book is to feel the sting of winter in your lungs and the wet kiss of condensation collecting in a scarf. Skating Wild on an Inland Sea is a perfect book for the season, as readers young and old settle into the quiet mood of winter and enjoy the thrill of skating.

Alone: The Journeys of Three Young Refugees by Paul Tom

Translated by Arielle Aaronson
Illustrated by Mélanie Baillairgé

House of Anansi Press

Alone: The Journeys of Three Young Refugees is the illustrated adaptation-in-prose of the Gémeaux Award-winning documentary film, Seuls, by director Paul Tom. In these pages we meet Alain, Patricia, and Afshin – three of the many hundreds of child refugees who arrive in Canada every year alone without their families.  Blunt, heartbreaking, and hopeful, Tom’s text, translated by Arielle Aaronson, gives voice to young refugees like fifteen-year-old Alain, stranded in Nairobi with his brothers while waiting for a call from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees after their mother’s death: “We don’t know when our suffering will end and the happy days will begin.” On a muted canvas peppered with stark reds and greens, illustrator Mélanie Baillairgé storyboards the bitterness of separation and the bittersweet relief of arrivals. In Alone, tender and real stories find shelter.

Who Owns the Clouds? by Mario Brassard

Translated by Yvette Ghione
Illustrated by Gérard DuBois

Tundra Books

It is natural to want to shield young people from the horrors of war, but when they are directly or indirectly exposed to the conflicts in our world, they need tools such as books to understand and process what they have witnessed. For kids twelve years and older, I recommend Mario Brassard’s multi-award-winning graphic novel, Who Owns the Clouds? Memories of protagonist Mila’s childhood spent in a war zone appear through low-lying fog. She recalls that as her family prepared to flee the bombing around them, she was overcome by fatigue. In portending dreams, she walks in an endless line of refugees. When awake, she fears that life as she knows it will all but disappear. Who Owns the Clouds? is a trauma narrative and a complex coming-of-age story that bears witness to the lasting human cost of armed conflict and forced displacement. Brassard’s spare and unflinching prose is smartly translated by Yvette Ghione, and Gerard Dubois’ haunting illustrations in sepia tones carry this work to great heights. Who Owns the Clouds? gives voice to the unspeakable and, when the clouds part, a view to hope.

Nutshimit: In the Woods by Melissa Mollen Dupuis

Illustrated by Elise Gravel

Scholastic

When two inspiring creators come together and make something special, I put it on the best-of-the-year booklist. Nutshimit: In the Woods, by Innu author Melissa Mollen Dupuis and author-illustrator Elise Gravel, is a celebration of the Innu language, creation stories, and culture, and of the trees and animals on Turtle Island. An educational book infused with Gravel’s ripe sense of humour, kids will laugh while they learn about foraging and the many uses of cedar and birch bark. They will be introduced to the concept of conservation work and intrigued by Dupuis’ descriptions of the personalities of animals real and imagined. For example, the wolverine, also known as the great trickster, is famous for his sharp claws and bad temper: “For real, don’t go near one, it’s fierce. We respect its bubble.” If the word bubble sends a pandemic-flavoured chill down your spine, you’ll find solace in the Innu word, nutshimit, which means the sacred social and physical space where one can practice traditional activities and language. This book is a great opening for such explorations. 

Where Did Momo’s Hair Go? by Stéphanie Boyer

Translated by Carine Laforest
Illustrated by Caroline Hamel

CrackBoom! Books

In Where Did Momo’s Hair Go? by Stéphanie Boyer, Momo the clown’s hair is playing a game of intermediate Peekaboo with a cast of canines, to the great amusement of the toddler crowd. In the few pages he appears, Momo gives off working-class-clown vibes. This guy is in a hurry to get to his next gig, and he’s late for the bus too. He’s hustling so fast that his hair takes a leap onto Ms. Strudel’s Poodle and then onto Mr. Bastien’s Dalmatian. In this busy world, it’s not enough to vaguely resemble your dog, your name better rhyme with it too. The jaunty illustrations by Caroline Hamel convey the happy chaos that reigns in Momo’s portside town. This book is just pure fun. There are no great plot twists, but one can be rest assured of a happy outcome for poor Momo – just as in the game of Peekaboo.

Meaghan Thurston is a Montreal-based arts and science writer, co-editor of the anthology With the World to Choose From: Seven Decades of the Beatty Lecture at McGill University, and mother to two budding readers.

Illustration by Alexandra Sweny.

The post Kid’s Lit Holiday Round-Up appeared first on Read Quebec.

By Nived Dharmaraj and Alexandra Sweny

Amidst heavy political censorship both abroad and at home, many readers are looking for additional context to understand both the present-day Israel-Palestine relationship and the events leading up to the brutality of the past months. To this end, we have created a list of books from our member publishers and Quebec-based writers that aim to elucidate the longstanding conflict. Like many publishers, artists, and writers, we believe in the power of the written word to facilitate learning and empathy, and believe these to be essential in approaching any conflict. Published from 1989 to 2023 and featuring academic texts, poetry, memoirs, and works of fiction, the list is a reminder that the roots of this conflict are longstanding, far-reaching and deserving of sustained engagement.

Leftwing Books

Poetic Injustice: Writings on Resistance in Palestine, by Remi Kanazi

Leftwing Books, 2011

From the publisher’s website:

“Poetic Injustice is a diverse mix of unabashed resistance poems. Laced with searing indictments of occupation, ethnic cleansing, and war, Remi tackles some of the most important issues facing the world today. Additionally, included in the collection are forty-eight three-line poems for Palestine and a full-length spoken word poetry CD. Pulitzer Prize winner and Nation Institute senior fellow Chris Hedges said, ‘There is more truth, and perhaps finally more news, in Remi Kanazi’s poems than the pages of your daily newspaper or the sterile reports flashed across your screens.’ Former US Congresswoman and Green Party nominee for president Cynthia McKinney said ‘Poetic Injustice is breathtakingly honest prose that shakes the reader’s preconceived notions of the Middle East…run out and get this collection today.'” 

McGill-Queen’s University Press

Settler Indigeneity in the West Bank, edited by Rachel Feldman and Ian McGonigle

McGill-Queen’s University Press, 2023

From the publisher’s website:

“Settler-Indigeneity in the West Bank asks what Israeli settlers mean when they say they are indigenous; how settler indigeneity is felt, performed, and mediated; and what the implications of indigeneity claims are on the international stage. Building on foundational scholarship that has come out of post-colonial and indigeneity studies, the volume theorizes settler-indigeneity as a cultural phenomenon and product of transnational settler-colonial histories, while also interrogating the dialectic of ‘settler’ and ‘indigenous’ to illustrate their co-constitution. Considering agriculture, clothing, food, language, and religious practices, the chapters explore how feelings of indigeneity are fashioned and how these feelings continue to transform the landscape of the West Bank.”

The Domestic Battleground: Canada and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, edited by David Taras and David H. Goldberg

McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989

From the publisher’s website:

“Few international issues have aroused as much passionate interest and political activity among Canadians. The contest on “the domestic battleground” has been decisive in determining Canada’s policies in the Middle East. The Domestic Battleground provides the history and background needed to understand Canadian attitudes toward both the explosive unrest occurring in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the participants in the conflict – Israel, the Palestinians, and the rest of the Arab world. Taras and Goldberg analyse the struggles over the levers of decision making in Ottawa and the battle between moral stances and convictions that has taken place among concerned Canadians.”

No Balm in Gilead, by Sylva M. Gelber

McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1989

From the publisher’s website:

“This book is a rare personal record by a Canadian of the last fifteen years of the British mandate in Palestine. Gelber writes about her experiences as a young Jewish woman during the birth of Israel, and without attributing blame, describes worsening tensions among the factions involved.”

Baraka Books

Israel: A Beachhead in the Middle East
From European Colony to US Power Projection Platform, by Stephen Gowans

Baraka Books, 2019

From the publisher’s website:

“Stephen Gowans challenges the specious argument that Israel controls US foreign policy, tracing the development of the self-declared Jewish state, from its conception in the ideas of Theodore Herzl, to its birth as a European colony, through its efforts to suppress regional liberation movements, to its emergence as an extension of the Pentagon, integrated into the US empire as a pro-imperialist Sparta of the Middle East.”

Linda Leith Publishing

The Philistine, by Leila Marshy

Linda Leith Publishing, 2018

From the publisher’s website:

“Nadia Eid doesn’t know it yet, but she’s about to change her life. It’s the end of the ‘80s and she hasn’t seen her Palestinian father since he left Montreal years ago to take a job in Egypt, promising to bring her with him. But now she’s twenty-five and he’s missing in action, so she takes matters into her own hands. Booking a short vacation from her boring job and Québecois boyfriend, she calls her father from the Nile Hilton in downtown Cairo. But nothing goes as planned and, stumbling around, Nadia wanders into an art gallery where she meets Manal, a young Egyptian artist who becomes first her guide and then her lover. 

Through this unexpected relationship, Nadia rediscovers her roots, her language, and her ambitions, as her father demonstrates the unavoidable destiny of becoming a Philistine – the Arabic word for Palestinian. With Manal’s career poised to take off and her father’s secret life revealed, the First Intifada erupts across the border.”

Black Rose Books

Filtering the News: Essays on Herman and Chomsky’s Propaganda Model, edited by Jeffery Klaehn

Black Rose Books, 2005

From the publisher’s website:

“Filtering The News explores the continuing critical relevance of Herman and Chomsky’s influential propaganda model for the analysis of media reporting of the environment, the war against Iraq, journalism post 9/11, media reporting of the Israel/Palestine conflict and other case studies.”

Note: While Filtering The News does mention the Israel/Palestine conflict, it also discusses several other case studies of war and media reporting. However, we felt that the larger theoretical lens employed was useful in generally understanding how media operates during such times of crisis.

Daraja Books

Mental Health and Human Rights in Palestine: The Life of Gaza’s Pioneering Psychiatrist Dr Eyad Sarraj, by Wasseem El Sarraj

Daraja Books, 2022

From the publisher’s website:

“This is a biography of the life of Dr Eyad El Sarraj, Gaza’s pioneering psychiatrist and founder of the Gaza Community Mental Healthcare Programme, written by his son, Wasseem El Sarraj. It is also a history of Palestine with a focus on Gaza. Eyad’s life was intimately intertwined with Palestine’s struggles so his choices and reactions reflected many of the major historical moments of the last 70 years. The book is an effort to provide a perspective on how the forces around him impacted his life, and how he took control of what he could achieve in an intractable situation. The book is interspersed with Wasseem’s own reflections as a mixed-race Palestinian, and as someone who has lived under occupation in Gaza.”

Non-AELAQ-Affiliated Books by Quebec-Based Authors

Driving in Palestine, by Rehab Nazzal

Fernwood Publishing, 2023

From the publisher’s website:

“During the past seven decades, Palestine has been sealed from the Arab world and shattered into fragmented and coded areas: 1948 area, 1967 area, Jerusalem, West Bank, Gaza and A, B and C areas within the West Bank. Each area is ruled by different laws, including different roads and permits that control the mobility of Palestinians and privilege Jewish settlers.

Driving in Palestine is a research-creation project by acclaimed artist Rehab Nazzal, who explores the visible indices of the politics of mobility that she encountered firsthand while traversing the occupied West Bank between 2010 and 2020. This photography book consists of 160 black and white photographs, hand-drawn maps and critical essays in Arabic and English by Palestinian and Canadian scholars and artists.

The photographs were all captured from moving vehicles on the roads of the West Bank. They focus on Israel’s architecture of movement restrictions and surveillance structures that proliferate in the West Bank, including the Apartheid Wall, segregation walls surrounding illegal colonies, gates, fences, watchtowers, roadblocks and military checkpoints among other obstacles to freedom of movement.”

I Am Ariel Sharon, by Yara El-Ghadban (translated by Wayne Grady)

House of Anansi Press, 2018

From the publisher’s website:

“A bold and innovative novel, I Am Ariel Sharon dives into the tortured mind of the controversial Israeli prime minister as he lies comatose and faces an ultimate reckoning.

Award-winning Palestinian Canadian novelist Yara El-Ghadban imagines the confrontation at death’s door between Ariel Sharon, the “King of Israel,” and the women closest to him — his mother, his wives, and the mysterious nurse Rita. Like latter-day Greek furies, they lament the brutality of his life and maltreatment of the Palestinian people and demand he face up to his part in the bloodshed of Israel’s wars.

Here is an extraordinary, magical, and impassioned story of nearly impossible empathy, the singular work of a novelist in full flight.”

To Love a Palestinian Woman, by Ehab Lotayef

TSAR Publications, 2010

From the bookstore’s website:

“Inspired by the rich poetic tradition of the author’s native Arab culture, To Love a Palestinian Woman includes works written over eight years. Richly evocative and often passionate, these poems can be described as personal and romantic, as well as public and political. While the condition in Palestine is a dominant theme, so is love. Conciliatory in tone or passionately confrontational, these poems stem from a deep humanity that cannot fail to engage the reader.”

Wall of Dust by Timothy Niedermann

Deux Voiliers, 2015

From the publisher’s website:

“Wall of Dust is a story of the human spirit—of the pain of loss and the struggle to recover. Aisha, a Palestinian schoolteacher, becomes deranged after most of her class is accidentally killed by a missile fired from an Israeli gunship. She begins a strange ritual, throwing stones at the “security barrier,” the eight-meter-tall concrete wall that separates much of the West Bank from Israel. […] Lyrically written, full of compassion for the people of Palestine and Israel and for the land they inhabit together, Wall of Dust is a story of revelation, redemption, and the persistence of hope.”

The post Resources for Learning appeared first on Read Quebec.

The Queer Film Classics book series relaunches with a new local publisher

by Zoe Shaw

Quebec has long held thriving connections to the histories of cinema and LGBTQ+ culture. The growing catalog of the series Queer Film Classics, edited by two Montreal-based academics and now published by a local press, exemplifies these connections.

Queer Film Classics began in 2009, originally published by Arsenal Pulp Press. The series would apparently end after nineteen titles, published in the series’ first ten years, but McGill-Queen’s University Press recently picked up the series for a continued run. 

Under this new publisher, the series has published six new titles and counting, still under the leadership of the original editors, Thomas Waugh and Matthew Hays. Waugh is Distinguished Professor Emeritus in Film Studies and Sexuality at Concordia University, and Hays is a writer and instructor at Marianopolis College and Concordia University in film and media studies. Both expressed excitement and gratitude that the series is continuing, with Hays noting that “When we put out a new call for proposals, it was clear that the first nineteen volumes had had an impact; we got so many fantastic proposals, it was overwhelming. I’m very happy to have it continue.” New cover designs (by none other than David Drummond, whose work decorates many titles at MQUP) bring recognizable splashes of colour and bold geometric shapes to the series’ identity. 

Despite a transition between publishers, notably a transition from a small press to a scholarly publisher, the series retains its same independent character. The new titles in the series are still trade books, accessible to audiences outside of the academy, but they benefit from the early peer review process shared by the academic titles at MQUP. 

To those who might worry about an exclusionary ivory tower slant, Waugh explains that the books are “designed for mixed general audiences including academics and students of course, but also everyone from film fans to queer cultural history buffs. We push for accessibility and personal vantage points rather than esoteric academic ‘objectivity.’” Hays elaborates, citing contributors’ continued intellectual rigour in combination with their personal angle: “I love the idea of the series being accessible while having academic applications. Smart, but readable for non-academics. The books have required a lot of research and rigour on the part of the authors, but are also full of personal reflection on the films in focus.”

The series has bridged the gap between academic monographs and personal narratives since its inception, and it will continue to do so moving forward as has been exemplified in the six titles that have been published by MQUP: L’homme blessé (Patrice Chéreau, 1983) by Robert Payne, Boys Don’t Cry (Kimberly Peirce, 1999) by Chase Joynt and Morgan Page, Orlando (Sally Potter, 1992) by Russell Shaeffer, Appropriate Behaviour (Desiree Akhavan, 2014) by Maria San Filippo, Midnight Cowboy (John Schlesinger, 1969) by John Towlson, and À tout prendre et Il était une fois dans l’Est (Claude Jutra, 1963; André Brassard, 1974) by Julie Vaillancourt. 

Contributors range from filmmakers to academics to journalists;, where the individual author’s relationship with a film is a primary factor. The selected films differ in countries of origin and in queer identities; even the film release dates extend into the 2010s, cementing recent works as classics. Waugh and Hays select titles not on the basis of the films’ long-held international reputations, but by the expert contributors’ personal angle on the films. The series blurb on the MQUP website eloquently states: “Books in the series have much to teach us, not only about the art of film but about the queer ways in which films can transmit our meanings, our stories, and our dreams.”

In the long term, the series aims to continue contributing to the development of the queer film canon, engaging with well known films and underground titles alike, including many Canadian films. Hays says, “Someone said that’s what we were doing, helping to re-imagine the canon, and that was the greatest compliment I could think of.”

So what’s next for Queer Film Classics? Their most recent title celebrates its release next month at feminist bookstore L’Euguélionne. Columnist and teacher Julie Vaillancourt’s study of two films, Claude Jutra’s À tout prendre and André Brassard’s Il était une fois dans l’Est, is the first French-language title in the series, and an English translation will soon follow. The launch is on Saturday, May 20th, at 3 p.m. at L’Euguélionne, featuring cast and crew members from Il était une fois dans l’Est. 

Upcoming titles also include global and local classics: Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Stephan Elliott, 1994), Cabaret (Bob Fosse, 1972), Winter Kept Us Warm (David Secter, 1965), Maurice (James Ivory, 1987), The Children’s Hour (William Wyler, 1961), Tomboy (Céline Schiamma, 2011), The Watermelon Woman (Cheryl Dunye, 1997), and Different from the Others (Richard Oswald, 1919). 

You can find books from Queer Film Classics on the McGill-Queen’s University Press website or at your local bookstore. Read about your favourite film, or discover new ideas for movie night by browsing the titles.

Zoe Shaw is a writer and editor based in Montreal. She is the Managing Editor at carte blanche literary magazine.

Illustration by C. Huynh

The post Queering the Canon appeared first on Read Quebec.

by Léa Murat-Ingles

Translation in Quebec is heading for quite the resurgence lately, with works such as Perdre la tête, a new translation of Heather O’Neill’s When We Lost Our Heads, nominated for the prestigious Prix des Libraires du Québec. Black literature is also benefiting from this: meaningful books like No Crystal Stair, one of Afro-Quebec’s most notable historical novels by Montreal author Mairuth Sarsfield, originally published in Ontario in 1993, was reissued by Linda Leith Publishing in 2021 in both English and French. And with countless translations being put out by big French-language editor Mémoire d’encrier every year, translation in Quebec won’t be slowing down anytime soon (unless recession hits us really really badly, and let’s hope not). Something, however, is quite new in this revival : the way Black and queer translators are actively using translation as a form of transgression.

As we know, African and Caribbean diasporas have been present in the province of Quebec even before it was so called. These multilingual communities have since created a space somewhere in the binary dynamic of our province by shattering a staggering amount of language barriers. Thankfully, it now seems to be happening in literature too, with new publications that entirely rethink the translation process, and what it means to be a translator in Quebec. Two upcoming releases are noteworthy in that sense: The Rage Letters, translated by Kama La Mackerel for Metonymy Press from its original French version Les enragé.e.s by Valérie Bah (published in the book series Les Martiales at Les éditions du remue-ménage in 2021), and the French translation, by Stéphane Martelly, of Magnetic Equator by Kaie Kellough. As fate sometimes has it, these three interdisciplinary artists had been working as a community way before these publications were even planned.

In 2018, poet, painter, and teacher Martelly (Inventaires, Tryptique, 2016) created Les Martiales, a new groundbreaking book series of fiction and non-fiction dedicated to publishing Afrodescendant women and non-binary individuals at Les éditions du remue-ménage. Filmmaker and photographer Bah was the second voice to emerge from this endeavour with Les enragé.e.s, a collection of intertwined short stories about a group of Afroqueer young adults in Montreal.

Kama La Mackerel (Zom Fam, Metonymy Press, 2020) got their hands on an early manuscript of Les enragé.e.s and fell in love “not even halfway through” reading, delighted to discover that their friend had such a beautiful writing practice beyond their unique talents as a visual artist. Bah had been capturing and recording most of La Mackerel’s brimming artistic practice – exhibits, performances, spoken poetry, and so much more. For La Mackerel, feeling like Bah played such a huge part in their grassroots projects and their development as an artist left them wanting to do something in return.

So when Metonomy Press approached La Mackerel to get suggestions for their very first French-to-English translation, they immediately thought of Les enragé.e.s, their new favourite book. “The way that it talks about race and queerness unapologetically, the way she is writing about blackness, the way she felt it, in the intersection with queerness… it made me feel seen,” they recall. Taking on translating such a book is no easy task – a whole year of work – but, thankfully, they had access to the best collaborator: their friend, the author of the original book, no less. This enjoyable collaboration came with greater challenges. “For me, translation is intimidating,” La Mackerel admits. “I feel like it should come from humility and from having reverence to the work, the artistic process, and the book. There is so much that Valérie is doing to the French language in this book. I hope I can render this in [my] translation.”

The Rage Letters, a powerful title full of mutual appreciation and respect, has been given to the book, coming out this spring. “Translating is a way of giving back and to hold Val’s words as much as she held my practice,” says La Mackerel. Bah, on the other hand, thinks La Mackerel has made the book better with this translation process. “They are bringing a new meaning to it,” she says. “In terms of language, their precision and insightful look are amplifying the social themes of the book. I feel like our interaction is improving my work.” Her involvement in La Mackerel’s work sparked a newfound curiosity for translation, but also for her own book. “The work of translation feels like a creative risk… Being Haitian in so-called Montreal really means something; the diasporas are showing it with how they shape culture and language. How do you transpose that into the English language? How do you make them coherent?”

This translation means a great deal to Martelly, who edited Les enragé.e.s. “Quebec projects itself in the rest of Canada as a homogeneous place, which is false,” Martelly notes. “Valérie’s book will allow people to see other realities of black existence in Quebec, from the point of view of second-generation black queer youth.” She hopes other unique translations like these will seep through the tight sealing between French and English literatures in Quebec. Her next publication is also a translation, Équateur Magnétique, from Kaie Kellough’s prized collection of poems, Magnetic Equator. Like Bah and La Mackerel, Martelly has known Kellough for quite some time, from collaborations such as the Protests & Pedagogy project at Concordia University. 

For Martelly, Kellough’s work has a uniqueness – one she intimately understands. Both she and her colleague are established poets, and of Caribbean origin: “The particularity of Caribbean texts is the difficulty of their translation. There are always at least two languages ​​in action [Western and Caribbean languages], sometimes more in contamination. It requires a lot of knowledge to understand the particular cultural context of Caribbean writing, of the sacred languages being used, of the multiple Caribbean artists being quoted.” Unlike La Mackerel with Bah, Martelly wanted to have a first go at the translation process without Kellough’s input. Doing so helped her gain a creative freedom that gave her the tools to translate such a colossal work, which was nominated for multiple awards, and won the Griffin Poetry Prize in 2020.

To translate untranslatable words and to find ways to restitute Kellough’s incredible rhythm and images, Martelly had to break open the core of language and use etymology to invent new words and cheat the oh-so-rigid French syntax. This wasn’t a new process for her, because she had been playing with language, both in Creole and French, in her own poetry: “I have always been very sensitive to language, especially through poetry. There, language can be worked and transformed.”

This kind of transgression is what links Stéphane Martelly to Kama La Mackerel in their work as multilingual translators. Since they were both given unconditional trust by the original authors, both artists were comfortably able to break the rules of hegemonic translation. Martelly, for example, got to slip in some Haitian cultural references that weren’t originally in the book – with Kellough’s approval, of course. For La Mackerel too, translation is an intrinsically transgressive form of art that allows them to recreate a work chosen politically, to “get immersed in a subjectivity and a universe that is deeply transgressive, a multiplicity that is political.” Valérie Bah shares her friend and colleague’s philosophy: “Our queer creative structures and ways of being bring language beyond the binary and dominance to renegotiate language.”

Léa Murat-Ingles (she/they) is a bookseller, research assistant and French literature master’s student of Haitian descent. As part of her studies, she is particularly interested in Haitian literature from Quebec, Afrofuturism, and the role of archives in research creation. She was born and raised in Montreal, where she still resides.

Illustration by Rakim Jah

Stéphane Martelly on Instagram

Valérie Bah official site, Instagram

Kama La Mackerel official site, Instagram

The post Transgressing Translation appeared first on Read Quebec.

By Emma Telaro 

Summer in Montreal is in full swing. Whether you’re traveling, working, or just kicking it back, here are some ideas to keep you occupied during your downtime. 

At Read Quebec, we love a good local book recommendation, so we reached out to Quebec-based writers to find out what they’re reading this summer. Below are their seasonal suggestions. 

Ariela Freedman recommends:

Time Zone J by Julie Doucet 

Drawn & Quarterly, 2022 

2022 marks Julie Doucet’s triumphant return to the comics medium: in March she won the Grand Prix at the Angôuleme Comics festival, and in April, Drawn & Quarterly released her new book Time Zone J, a fever dream of a graphic memoir which mixes memory and desire in an account of a reckless love affair with a young French recruit she calls the hussar. Doucet tells the story as the middle-aged narrator of her own misspent youth against a crowded black and white background which contains a wild menagerie of fantasy and recollection. Not a beach read, but impossible to put down.

Ariela Freedman was born in Brooklyn and has lived in Jerusalem, New York, Calgary, London, and Montreal. She has a Ph.D. from New York University and teaches literature at Concordia’s Liberal Arts College in Montreal, where she lives with her family. Her debut, Arabic for Beginners (LLP, 2017), was shortlisted for the QWF Concordia University First Book Prize and won the 2018 J. I. Segal Prize for Fiction. Her second novel, A Joy to be Hidden (LLP, 2019), was shortlisted for the Segal Prize in 2020, and was a finalist for the The Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. Her latest novel, Léa (LLP, 2022), is about the life of famed activist and feminist Léa Roback.

Gillian Sze recommends:

Daydreams of Angels by Heather O’Neill

HarperCollins, 2015

I loved dipping into Heather O’Neill’s collection of short stories this summer and losing myself to magic, whimsy, robots, angels, and heartbreak. She is such a masterful storyteller. I don’t know how she makes these impossible worlds possible, but I’m so glad she does.

Gillian Sze is the author of multiple poetry collections and picture books. She studied Creative Writing and English Literature and received a PhD in études anglaises from Université de Montréal. Her latest collection of poems and essays, Quiet Night Think, explores the early shaping of a writer, the creative process, and motherhood. gilliansze.com

Klara du Plessis recommends:

PLACE by Alexei Perry Cox

Noemi Press, 2022

Alexei Perry Cox’s second collection PLACE (Noemi Press, 2022) is a stunning, intimate progression of translingual and grounded poetics. It is important reading to listen to, especially as we reflect upon what it means to live on unceded or stolen land, and resist the colonial practice of mapping borders and reading place as static. Alexei will perform from PLACE in dialogue with Kama La Mackerel as part of We’ve Weave, a Deep Curation performance 28 July and 9 August.

Klara du Plessis (she/her) is a poet, scholar, and literary curator. Her debut collection, Ekke, won the Pat Lowther Memorial Award, and her second book is Hell Light Flesh, both released by Palimpsest Press. This year she published a book of experimental criticism based on transcription with SpokenWeb and in collaboration with Emma Telaro called Quotes: Transcriptions on Listening, Sound, Agency, and a chapbook with Knife Fork Book, Skin and Meat Sky. Klara is a PhD candidate in English Literature at Concordia University, Tiohtià:ke/Montreal.

Photo by Dean Garlick.

Malcolm Fraser recommends:

The Adventures of Sgoobidoo by Cathon

Pow Pow Press, 2021

My summer recommendation is The Adventures of Sgoobidoo, by local artist Cathon, out from Pow Pow Press (the English-language imprint of Éditions Pow Pow, who publish a lot of really interesting Quebec comics). Sgoobidoo is obviously inspired in name and general concept by a certain famous cartoon dog detective, but otherwise unrelated. Cathon’s version is a somewhat bleak, occasionally nihilistic, but always funny parody of comic-book tropes, including the hyperbolic ads that readers of a certain generation will recall from their favourite superhero comics. With an enjoyably simple drawing style and a sensibility ranging from melancholy to nightmarish, The Adventures of Sgoobidoo offers dark humour to counterbalance the sunny season.

Malcolm Fraser is a writer, musical entertainer, occasional filmmaker, host of the What Is This Music?! podcast, and editor of the Montreal Review of Books. 

Alex Manley recommends:

Kim: A Novel Idea by Frankie Barnet

Metatron Press, 2022

Frankie Barnet’s second book with Metatron Press — following her powerful but more stylistically conservative 2016 debut, the short story collection An Indoor Kind of Girl — is called Kim: A Novel Idea. A graphic novel (of sorts), it sees Barnet using her perennially sharp prose and biting wit to explore what it’s like to attend a university program where the profs are predatory. In addition to exploring the big questions (death, love, Kim Kardashian, talking cats) and zooming in to microscope level on the uncomfortable thoughts we all experience when confronted with them, the whole thing is threaded through with perfectly lo-fi digital illustrations that rub shoulders with the book’s ideas about finality and perfection — hence the subtitle, “A Novel Idea,” not simply “A Novel.”

Alex Manley is a Montreal-based writer and editor. Their recent works include an English-language translation of Daphné B.’s Maquillée (Made-Up, Coach House Books, 2021) and a forthcoming book on contemporary manhood (The New Masculinity, ECW Press, 2023).

Dean Garlick recommends:

Brothers by David Clerson, translated by Katia Grubisic

QC Fiction, 2016

This book is a few years old, but to this day it is the Québécois book in English translation I most often recommend. Clerson’s novel mesmerizes as a piece of contemporary fabulism that imagines the limits of what it means to be human, and how far beyond those limits two brothers are willing to go to discover their true identities.

Dean Garlick is a photographer and fiction writer. His photography documents the at times surprising beauty of banal subject matter in the alleys and industrial areas of Montreal.

deangarlick.com

Dean on Instagram

Faith Paré recommends:

the half-drowned by Trynne Delaney

Metatron Press, 2022 

Trynne Delaney’s speculative novella the half-drowned follows a group of young people trying to make sense of home in a world made uninhabitable from climate catastrophe. Inspired by the Bay of Fundy’s otherworldly seascape, Delaney is a bold inheritor of the Afrofuturist literary tradition, with a pearlescent prose that guides the plot’s murky mysteries of ancestry and inheritance.

Faith Paré is a poet and performer of Afro-Guyanese ancestry. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in The Puritan, Arc Poetry Magazine, Contemporary Verse 2, and elsewhere. Faith is the curator of the Atwater Poetry Project, an English-language reading series founded in 2004 and hosting poets and audiences from across Canada. She is a proud alum of “Our Bodies, Our Stories,” a program for emerging queer and trans BIPOC artists led by Kama La Mackerel, and was the inaugural recipient of the Quebec Writers’ Federation’s Mairuth Sarsfield Mentorship under Gillian Sze. faithpare.com

Emma Telaro is a writer and reader living in Montreal. She is the Associate Director of the Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec. To get involved with AELAQ, email her at emma@aelaq.org.

The post Summer Reads appeared first on Read Quebec.