Media Hits: YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS, BURN MAN!

IN THE NEWS!

YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (Mar 5, 2024) received an outstanding review from Daniel Mason in the New York Times. The review was published online on March 3, 2024 and in print on March 10, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Mason writes:

“Comparisons do not do justice to the complexity of Stefánsson’s book, nor the uniqueness of his prose, rendered here in a tumblingly beautiful translation by Philip Roughton.”

Your Absence Is Darkness has also been reviewed in Asymptote, Under the Radar Magazine, and Winnipeg Free Press. The reviews were all published on March 11, 2024. It was also listed on Lit Hub, which highlighted the New York Times review, online on March 8, 2024.

In Asymptote, Kathryn Raver writes:

“A tale about life, death, and what we do with the time we are given in between the two . . . Stefánsson seeks to evoke is that the big picture isn’t for us to know, but something that is created, unknowingly, over the course of centuries.”

In Under the Radar, Frank Valish writes:

Your Absence Is Darkness will be one of the best books you read this year . . . [it] expounds on themes of life, death, love, loneliness, mistakes, and the search for meaning. The eternal themes. Those which the great novels elucidate carefully but spectacularly in unmatched prose. Which is exactly the kind of novel this is.”

In the Winnipeg Free Press, David Jón Fuller writes:

“The award-winning Icelandic author interweaves multigenerational stories often set in the country’s north and west . . . Stefánsson’s prose puts us right in the characters’ thoughts, feelings and sensations.”

Get Your Absence Is Darkness here!

BURN MAN

Burn Man by Mark Anthony Jarman (Nov 21, 2023) was reviewed in Literary Review of Canada. The review was published on March 8, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Ruth Panofsky writes:

“This is a writer who possesses stylistic mastery and an ability to evoke character and incident using the barest of details. His are inimitable protagonists—wounded and nameless men with a gift for irony and humour—who inhabit haunting worlds.”

Burn Man was also reviewed in the Globe and Mail. The review was published on March 13, 2024, and can be read here.

Emily M. Keeler writes:

“Jarman’s stories on the whole feel less Catholic in the Roman sense and more Catholic in the Greek sense: his attentions are rangey, all-embracing, vitalized by the splendour both in ugly mundane violence and the febrile pulsations of longing, of something a bit like love.”

Get Burn Man here!

THE FUTURE and COCKTAIL longlisted for the CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION!

This morning at 8 AM ET, The Future by Catherine Leroux (translated by Susan Ouriou) and Cocktail by Lisa Alward were longlisted for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, which is worth $150,000 USD! Both titles were published in September 2023 by Biblioasis. The shortlist will be announced on Tuesday, April 9, 2024. Check out the full longlist here.

Jen Sookfong Lee, on behalf of the Jury for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, shared:

“The Jury for this year’s Carol Shields Prize is so very pleased to share this exceptional and diverse longlist. All the authors have written remarkable works of fiction that illuminate who we are—our histories, flaws, ambitions, and loves—and who we could be. Congratulations to all the longlisted writers and their publisher.”

These are Biblioasis’ first two books to be nominated for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction. Biblioasis is a literary press based in Windsor, Ontario. Since 2004 we have published the best in contemporary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and literature in translation.

This is the second year of The Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, which aims to address continued inequality in the literary world, especially among women and non-binary authors. Novels, short story collections, and graphic novels written by women and non-binary authors and published in the United States and Canada are eligible for the Prize. Should a translated work win the Prize, $100,000 will be awarded to the author and $50,000 to the translator.

Get your copy of The Future here!

Get your copy of Cocktail here!

Credit: Maria Cardosa-Grant

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

Lisa Alward‘s stories have won The Fiddlehead Prize and the Peter Hinchcliffe Short Fiction Award and have appeared in Best Canadian Stories as well as The Journey Prize Stories. She grew up in Halifax and worked for several years in literary publishing in Toronto before moving with her family to Vancouver and ultimately to Fredericton, where she lives with her husband, John.

Photo Credit: Justine Latour

Catherine Leroux is a Québec novelist, translator and editor born in 1979. Her novel Le mur mitoyen won the France-Quebec Prize and its English version, The Party Wall, was nominated for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize. The Future is the CBC Canada Reads 2024 winner. It has also received the Jacques-Brossard award for speculative fiction and was nominated for the Quebec Booksellers Prize. Catherine also won the 2019 Governor General’s Literary Award for her translation of Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien. Two of her novels are currently being adapted for the screen. She lives in Montreal with her two children.

Photo Credit: Jaz Hart Studio Inc

Susan Ouriou is an award-winning fiction writer and literary translator with over sixty translations and co-translations of fiction, non-fiction, children’s and young-adult literature to her credit. She has won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation for which she has also been shortlisted on five other occasions. Many of her young adult translations have made the IBBY Honor List. She has also published two novels, Damselfish and Nathan, edited the anthologies Beyond Words – Translating the World and Languages of Our Land – Indigenous Poems and Stories from Quebec and contributed a one-act play to the upcoming anthology Many Mothers – Seven Skies. Susan lives in Calgary, Alberta.

We’re Hiring! Now accepting applications for a full-time Bookkeeper and Administrative Manager

Bookkeeper and Administrative Manager

Biblioasis is hiring an enthusiastic and organized full-time bookkeeper and administrative manager to work in-person in our Windsor publishing office in support of both the publishing company and bookshop. The successful candidate will be responsible for bookkeeping at both organizations, as well as payroll; author royalties and payments; sales projections and financial reporting; management of author contracts; and basic office administration.

While previous professional experience in bookkeeping and/or accounting is required, the ideal candidate will also have strong interest or experience in cultural and arts industries and be able to combine their business skills and attention to detail with a passion for supporting creative endeavours.

Major responsibilities:

  • Accounts payable: posting invoices, issuing payments
  • Accounts receivable: posting web sales, issuing invoices, processing payment receipts
  • Bi-weekly payroll processing, monthly source deductions, annual T4 preparation, ROE’s, and vacation and time-off requests and tracking
  • Posting bookstore sales (weekly journal entry)
  • Bank deposits, cash handling, bank reconciliations
  • Processing and entering sales from US and Canadian distributors (monthly)
  • Weekly inventory tracking and updates in Sage
  • GST/HST remittances (quarterly)
  • Audit preparation: working papers, accruals, deferrals
  • Grant reporting, budget preparation
  • Royalty statement preparation & payments
  • Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credits (yearly): certificate applications & schedule 564 for accountant to prepare corporate tax return amendments
  • Contract administration
  • Basic office administration
  • Other tasks as assigned

Knowledge, skills, and abilities required:

  • Degree or certificate in bookkeeping and/or accounting, or previous professional experience.
  • Proficiency with Sage 50 and Excel
  • Strong organizational skills
  • Strong communication and cooperative skills
  • Ability to independently prioritize and meet deadlines

Education and experience:

  • Previous experience in the book publishing and/or bookselling industry would be an asset
  • Previous experience in cultural industries, grant-writing and reporting, or inventory would be an asset.

Salary expectations:

Starting salary to range between $45,000–55,000, commensurate with experience, with an additional flexible health spending account.

Who we are:

Biblioasis is an award-winning independent publishing house and bookstore based in Windsor, Ontario. We publish approximately twenty-five titles a year, including short fiction, novels, poetry, literary criticism, memoir, belle lettres, local and regional history, and general non-fiction. We are also the publishers of the critical journal CNQ: Canadian Notes & Queries and the annual Best Canadian anthologies.

To apply:

Email your resume and cover letter to Vanessa Stauffer at vstauffer@biblioasis.com. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis, with interviews beginning Monday, March 18, in the hope that the successful candidate can start immediately.

THE FUTURE wins CANADA READS 2024!

We are overjoyed to announce that this morning at 11 AM ET, The Future by Catherine Leroux (translated by Susan Ouriou) was declared the winner of CBC’s Canada Reads competition 2024! One of the most important literary prizes in Canada, the competition is a four day broadcast event featuring five celebrity panelists championing Canadian books and debating their merits, in this battle of the books a title is eliminated each day until the last remaining book is named the one book all Canadians should read. The post-dystopian novel which was published by Biblioasis on September 5, 2023, was championed by the brilliant writer, and fantastic debater, Heather O’Neill. The theme of this year’s competition was “one book to carry us forward.” Set in an alternate history in which the city of Detroit was never ceded by French Canadian settlers and citizens still speak French, The Future is the story of one woman’s search for her missing granddaughters across a post-industrial landscape reeling from ecological collapse. It shows how it is in building community that we can find hope.

In her impassioned defense of the novel, Heather O’Neill said,

“This is a book about how the future belongs to children and how wrong it is that they are being given a broken world.”

The other Canada Reads champions appreciated the novel’s beautiful prose, colorful characters, and bittersweet ending. 

Both Catherine Leroux and Heather O’Neill are natives of Montréal, Québec and translator Susan Ouriou hails from Calgary, Alberta. The Future is the first translation to win Canada Reads since Kim Thúy’s Ru in 2015, and only the third translation to win in the prize’s more than twenty year history. 

Biblioasis publisher Dan Wells says,

“Before I was even a publisher, I remember listening avidly to Canada Reads. I can remember exactly where I was at certain moments—in the Tim Hortons drive-through in Emeryville, Ontario, when Lisa Moore defended Mavis Gallant’s short fiction against the suggestion that they were somehow lesser than a novel, for example—and today’s episode, for entirely different reasons, will remain as emblazoned. Heather O’Neill was the champion that a book like Catherine Leroux’s The Future needed, that literature in this country needs: kind, generous, gentle; off-centre and sparking insight in unexpected places and ways. We’re grateful for her efforts, thrilled for Catherine, one of our favourite writers and people; and ecstatic that Canada Reads has brought The Future to a nation-wide audience in a way that would have been impossible otherwise. Our heartfelt thanks, also, to moderator Ali Hassan, as well as Erin Balser, Lucy Mann, Charlene Chow and the rest of the Canada Reads team, whose professionalism, enthusiasm and care helped the anxiety go down.”

This is Biblioasis’ first book to win Canada Reads and its second translation to be nominated for CBC’s Canada Reads. The Dishwasher by Stéphane Larue (translated by Pablo Strauss) was nominated in 2020. Biblioasis is a literary press based in Windsor, Ontario. Since 2004 we have published the best in contemporary fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and literature in translation. 

CBC’s Canada Reads premiered in 2002. The great Canadian book debate has been airing annually for more than twenty years and selects a winning book that all Canadians should read. Ali Hassan hosted the 23rd competition, in which a panel of five celebrity advocates will champion Canadian books. More information on the program is available at cbcbooks.ca.

Grab your copy of The Future here!

ABOUT THE FUTURE

Winner of Canada Reads 2024 • One of Tor.com’s Can’t Miss Speculative Fiction for Fall 2023 • Listed in CBC Books Fiction to Read in Fall 2023 • One of 20 Books You Heard about on CBC Last Week • One of Kirkus Reviews’ Fall 2023 Big Books By Small Presses • A Kirkus Review Work of Translated Fiction To Read Now • One of CBC Books Best Books of 2023 • A CBC Books Bestselling Canadian Book of the Week

In an alternate history in which the French never surrendered Detroit, children protect their own kingdom in the trees.

In an alternate history of Detroit, the Motor City was never surrendered to the US. Its residents deal with pollution, poverty, and the legacy of racism—and strange and magical things are happening: children rule over their own kingdom in the trees and burned houses regenerate themselves. When Gloria arrives looking for answers and her missing granddaughters, at first she finds only a hungry mouse in the derelict home where her daughter was murdered. But the neighbours take pity on her and she turns to their resilience and impressive gardens for sustenance.

Photo Credit: Justine Latour

When a strange intuition sends Gloria into the woods of Parc Rouge, where the city’s orphaned and abandoned children are rumored to have created their own society, she can’t imagine the strength she will find. A richly imagined story of community and a plea for persistence in the face of our uncertain future, The Future is a lyrical testament to the power we hold to protect the people and places we love—together.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR & TRANSLATOR

Catherine Leroux is a Quebec novelist, translator and editor born in 1979. Her novel Le mur mitoyen won the France-Quebec Prize and its English version, The Party Wall, was nominated for the 2016 Scotiabank Giller Prize. The Future won CBC’s Canada Reads 2024, received the Jacques-Brossard award for speculative fiction and was nominated for the Quebec Booksellers Prize. Catherine also won the 2019 Governor General’s Literary Award for her translation of Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien. Two of her novels are currently being adapted for the screen. She lives in Montreal with her two children.

Photo Credit: Jaz Hart Studio Inc

Susan Ouriou is an award-winning fiction writer and literary translator with over sixty translations and co-translations of fiction, non-fiction, children’s and young-adult literature to her credit. She has won the Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation for which she has also been shortlisted on five other occasions. Many of her young adult translations have made the IBBY Honor List. She has also published two novels, Damselfish and Nathan, edited the anthologies Beyond Words – Translating the World and Languages of Our Land – Indigenous Poems and Stories from Quebec and contributed a one-act play to the upcoming anthology Many Mothers – Seven Skies. Susan lives in Calgary, Alberta.

Media Hits: YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS, THE FUTURE, THE EDUCATION OF AUBREY MCKEE, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux, translated by Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2024) was featured on Michigan Public Radio. The feature was reported online on February 28, 2024. You can read (and listen!) to the MPR piece here.

Rachel Ishikawa and Olivia Mouradian write:

“The novel contends with histories of forced migration, poverty, and environmental degradation … [and] speak[s] more broadly to the ways cities will be forced to change in the face of climate change.”

The Future was also reviewed in the Ottawa Review of Books on February 28, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Tim Niedermann writes:

“Leroux immerses the reader in these children’s world as they experience it … Trees and animals, wind and water speak to them in ways adults have forgotten…A paean to the wisdom that childhood possesses and the promise that it holds.”

Leroux read from The Future on CBC As It Happens on February 28, 2024. You can listen to the full episode here.

Grab your copy of The Future here!

YOUR ABSENCE IS DARKNESS

Your Absence Is Darkness by Jón Kalman Stefánsson, translated by Philip Roughton (Mar 5, 2024) has been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal! The review was published online on Mar 1, 2024. You can read the full review here.

Sam Sacks writes:

“Like fellow Scandinavian authors Jon Fosse and Karl Ove Knausgaard, Mr. Stefánsson joins plainspoken depictions of daily life to intimations of mysticism, creating a spectral, haunted atmosphere … Questioning, vulnerable and openly sentimental, this is an absorbing commemoration of what the author calls the paradox that rules our existence, the vivifying joy and paralyzing sorrow of loving another person.”

Your Absence Is Darkness featured by the Historical Novel Society as a forthcoming book to watch for. The article was published online on February 29, 2024.

You can read the full Historical Novel Society article here.

Get Your Absence Is Darkness here!

LOVE NOVEL

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko, translated by Mima Simić (Feb 6, 2024) was featured on Lit Hub as having one of the best book covers of February! Check out the full article here.

Get Love Novel here!

HOW TO BUILD A BOAT

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney (Nov 7, 2023) was reviewed in The Arts Fuse. The article was published online on March 1, 2024 and you can read the full review here.

Roberta Silman calls the book:

“[A] work of such depth and compassion that it was no surprise to learn that it was on the Long List for last year’s Booker prize … This is a book that should be read by every child and adult who is convinced he doesn’t ‘fit in.’ A book whose allusions and concerns broaden our view of the world.”

Get How to Build a Boat here!

ALL THINGS MOVE

All Things Move: Learning to Look in the Sistine Chapel by Jeannie Marshall (Apr 4, 2023) has been reviewed in Commonweal Magazine. The article was published online on February 26, 2024, and you can read the full review here.

Jeff Reimer writes:

“Marshall does not set up her unbelief as a barrier to encounter. Rather, she allows herself to be addressed by the paintings. She opens herself to them … Marshall is as much seeker as skeptic.”

Get All Things Move here!

BEST CANADIAN POETRY 2024

The Best Canadian Poetry 2024 anthology (Nov 14, 2023) has been featured on CBC Victoria and in Victoria Buzz, in advance of the Victoria book launch. Both pieces were published on February 28, 2024. You can listen to the CBC interview feature here.

Get Best Canadian Poetry 2024 here!

Check out all three Best Canadian anthologies here!

Media Hits: THE ART OF LIBROMANCY, THE HOLLOW BEAST, BURN MAN, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

THE ART OF LIBROMANCY

The Art of Libromancy by Josh Cook (Aug 22, 2023) was reviewed in Full Stop. The review was published online on February 18, 2024. You can read the full article here.

Rebecca Stuhr writes:

“In The Art of Libromancy, Josh Cook asks booksellers to live by their ideals. As a bookseller himself, at Porter Square Books in Massachusetts, he seeks to set an example for justice-based bookstores—justice for booksellers in their employment conditions, and justice as a motivation for bookselling.”

The Art of Libromancy was also featured in LitHub’s list of “Books for Indie Booksellers”, which was published online on February 23, 2024. You can read the full list here.

Rachel Conrad writes,

The Art of Libromancy is a candid and nuanced account of what it takes to be a part of an industry that faces a barrage of societal pressures and often finds itself at the forefront of social justice movements in a time where misinformation and fascism are on the rise.”

Get The Art of Libromancy here!

THE HOLLOW BEAST

The Hollow Beast by Christophe Bernard, trans. Lazer Lederhendler (Apr 2, 2024) was reviewed in Midwest Book Review. The review was published online on February 18, 2024, and can be read here.

The review reads:

“A master of epic storytelling, The Hollow Beast is an inherently fascinating saga of a read from start to finish.”

Order The Hollow Beast here!

BURN MAN

Burn Man by Mark Anthony Jarman (Nov 21, 2024) was reviewed in Midwest Book Review. The review was published online on February 18, 2024, and you can check it out here.

The review reads:

“A truly revelatory selection highlights from one of the most spirited and singular contemporary masters of the short story format.”

Burn Man was also reviewed by Jeremy Thomas Gilmer in the Ampersand Review. The full review is available to read online here.

Gilmer writes,

“This collection brings [Jarman’s] fiercest prose, his most vital characters, and builds an architecture against which our troubled times can be thrashed. The music of broken men, splintered lives, and the salted souls left behind echo through the pages.”

Get your copy of Burn Man here!

STANDING HEAVY

Standing Heavy by GauZ’, translated by Frank Wynne (Oct 3, 2023) was reviewed by Marcie McCauley in Buried in Print. The review was published online on February 22, 2024, and can be read here.

McCauley writes,

Standing Heavy (in translation by Frank Wynne) reads quickly, even though it’s rich and complex. I’d intended to read just a couple of chapters, but I spent a snowy afternoon reading the whole book until it was finished … the style is vivid, the dialogue taut, and the presentation is clever.”

Get Standing Heavy here!

ALL THE YEARS COMBINE

Ray Robertson, author of All the Years Combine: The Grateful Dead in Fifty Shows (Nov 7, 2023) was interviewed by Lynn Saxberg in the Ottawa Citizen. The article was published online on February 20, 2024, and you can read the full interview here.

Saxberg calls the book:

“A fascinating chronicle of the band’s history told in a series of essays.”

Get All the Years Combine here!

CROSSES IN THE SKY

Crosses in the Sky by Mark Bourrie (May 14, 2024) was featured in Quill & Quire’s Spring Preview. The article was published online on February 18, 2024, and you can check out the full preview here.

Attila Berki writes:

“Bourrie looks at how such early encounters between French colonists and missionaries and Indigenous Peoples continue to resonate in those same relationships.”

Preorder Crosses in the Sky here!

Media Hits: THE HOLLOW BEAST, THE FUTURE, LOVE NOVEL, THEY CALL ME GEORGE!

IN THE NEWS!

THE HOLLOW BEAST

The Hollow Beast by Christophe Bernard, translated by Lazer Lederhendler (Apr 2, 2024) has been reviewed in Foreword Reviews! The review was posted online on February 14, 2024 and can be read here.

Reviewer Isabella Zhou wrote,

“Mixing family history with local lore, the satirical novel The Hollow Beast is a tale of revenge and hauntings.”

Order The Hollow Beast here!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux, translated by Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2023), was reviewed by Andrew Hood on TheBookshelf! The review was published online on February 14, and can be read here.

Hood writes of the book,

“In The Future, old things are dying and new things are growing. That the new things come at the cost of the loss of the old can’t help but tint our feelings towards them. It’s this grey area that Leroux manages to break light through.”

Catherine Leroux was also interviewed alongside a review of The Future, in the McGill Daily! The feature was posted online on February 12, 2024. You can read and listen to the review and interview here.

Caley Fifield writes,

The Future is as factual as it is fictional, and the strength, creativity, and humour with which her characters weather each storm that comes their way are truly inspiring.”

Get The Future here!

LOVE NOVEL

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko, translated by Mima Simić (Feb 6, 2024), was featured in a ‘Book of the Day Roundup’ from Foreword Reviews! The roundup for the week of Feb 12-16 was posted online on February 15. Check out the full roundup here.

Love Novel was also reviewed by Tom Bowden in The Book Beat! The review was posted February 10, 2024. Read the full review here.

Bowden writes,

“Ivana Sajko’s narrative—rendered in English by Mima Simić with seeming effortlessness—is told in the third-person with an omniscience transparent enough to be led by the rhythms of each character’s thoughts and speech.”

Order Love Novel here!

THEY CALL ME GEORGE

They Call Me George by Cecil Foster was featured in All Lit Up‘s ‘Black History Month Series: Non-Fiction’ list! The list was posted on February 8, and you can check out the full article here.

Get They Call Me George here!

Media Hits: BURN MAN, THE FUTURE, LOVE NOVEL, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

THE FUTURE

Catherine Leroux, author of The Future (trans. by Susan Ouriou) (Sep 5, 2024) was interviewed alongside Heather O’Neill on CBC The Next Chapter by Ali Hassan, as part of their promotion of The Future for CBC Canada Reads, our nationwide literary competition. The interview aired on February 2, 204. You can listen to the full episode here.

Catherine Leroux was also interviewed for CBC Syndication which includes dozens of shows across the country. The interviews were conducted live on February 7, 2024. You can find links to all of her recent CBC interviews and features for Canada Reads here.

Get The Future here!

BURN MAN

Burn Man: Selected Stories by Mark Anthony Jarman (Nov 21, 2023) has been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal by Sam Sacks. The review was published online on February 8, 2024 and can be read here.

Fiction critic Sam Sacks writes:

“The stories in Burn Man, by the Canadian writer Mark Anthony Jarman, derive from the … raucous lineage of Barry Hannah, Thomas McGuane and Denis Johnson … He gives us a gallery of antiheroes—some of them bona fide criminals but many just screwups—who are helpless in the grip of their worst impulses.”

Get Burn Man here!

LOVE NOVEL

Love Novel by Ivana Sajko, translated by Mima Simić (Feb 6, 2024) was reviewed by Andrew Hood on The Bookshelf. The review was published online on February 5, 2024, and can be read in full here.

Hood writes:

“In its depiction of a contemporary relationship submitted to the meatgrinder of contemporary demands and expectations, Love Novel is unafraid and unsparing in its honesty.”

Love Novel was also listed in Library Journal as recommended by booksellers. The article was published online on February 5, 2024 and can be seen here.

Get Love Novel here!

THE HOLLOW BEAST

The Hollow Beast by Christophe Bernard, translated by Lazer Lederhendler (Apr 2, 2024) was reviewed in Publishers Weekly. The review was published online on February 2, 2024, and you can read the full review here.

The review reads:

“Quebecois writer Bernard debuts with a feverish burlesque about a one-time hockey player’s decades-long dispute with a referee and his grandson’s attempts to reverse the family curse … Bernard’s bawdiness and mania credibly evoke Thomas Pynchon’s flights of invention.”

Order The Hollow Beast here!

THE FULL-MOON WHALING CHRONICLES

Jason Guriel, author of The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles (Aug 1, 2023) has written a piece for The Millions, in which he discusses his journey from lyric poetry to a novel in verse. The article was published online on February 6, 2024. Check out the full essay here.

Grab The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles here!

THE ART OF LIBROMANCY

The Art of Libromancy by Josh Cook (Aug 22, 2023) was reviewed in the Chicago Tribune by John Warner as part of his “Top 5 Favorite Books About Bookstores.” The review was published online on January 27, 2024. You can read the full article here.

Warner calls the book:

“A treatise on the way commerce shapes what and how we read.”

Grab The Art of Libromancy here!

ALL THINGS MOVE

All Things Move by Jeannie Marshall (Apr 4, 2023) has been featured in Canadian Architect. The review was published online on February 1, 2024. Read the full review here.

Reviewer Adele Weber writes:

All Things Move: Learning to Look at the Sistine Chapel … makes a unique case for considering the Chapel as something other than a religious enclave, scholarly artifact, or checklist tourist attraction. It’s all those, of course, but its otherworldly qualities transcend religious, academic, or tour-bus affiliations.”

Get All Things Move here!

STANDING HEAVY translator FRANK WYNNE wins the SCOTT MONCRIEFF TRANSLATION PRIZE

We’re thrilled to share that the Society of Authors announced the winners of their prestigious translation prizes with a combined prize fund of $47,000 CAD, and among them is Frank Wynne, who has been awarded the Scott Moncrieff Prize for his translation from the French of Standing Heavy by GauZ’, which was published in North America by Biblioasis on October 3rd, 2023 and by MacLehose Press in the UK.

Scott Moncrieff Prize for Translation judge Jane MacKenzie says of Standing Heavy,

“The writing is searingly witty, incisive, full of vivid imagery, and has been superbly translated by Frank Wynne, losing none of the humour, the energy, the authentic street view. This is a true tour-de-force in both languages, and reads as joyfully and sharply in English as it does in French.”

The novel follows three generations of African security guards as they contend with a society growing more and more hostile to immigration. It offers a funny, fast-paced, and poignant take on the legacy of Franco-African history, and has received many excellent reviews from the New York Times, Financial Times, Elle Magazine, The Walrus, Kirkus Reviews and Publishers Weekly.

Biblioasis publisher Dan Wells says,

“Frank Wynne is a marvel, one of the best translators at work in any language: in this translation of Standing Heavy he’s given us monoglots the next best thing to reading him in the original: a sharp-eared, playful, elegant work of fiction. We’re very happy for him, and for GauZ’: may this bring him a few more readers in English.”

The Society of Authors awards prizes for translations from seven languages including the Scott Moncrieff Prize, an annual award for translations into English of full-length French works of literary merit and general interest. The winner is awarded £3,000 and a runner-up is awarded £1,000. This year’s judges were Constance Bantman, Jane MacKenzie and David Mills.

Get your copy of Standing Heavy here!

ABOUT STANDING HEAVY

Shortlisted for the 2023 International Booker Prize • One of The Walrus‘ Best Fall Books of 2023

A funny, fast-paced, and poignant take on Franco-African history, as told through the eyes of three African security guards in Paris.

All over the city, they are watching: Black men paid to stand guard, invisible among the wealthy flâneurs and yet the only ones who truly see. From Les Grands Moulins to a Sephora on the Champs-Élysées, Ferdinand, Ossiri, and Kassoum find their way as undocumented workers amidst political infighting and the ever-changing landscape of immigration policy. Fast-paced and funny, poignant and sharply satirical, Standing Heavy is a searing deconstruction of colonial legacies and capitalist consumption and an unforgettable account of everything that passes under the security guards’ all-seeing eyes.

ABOUT FRANK WYNNE

Frank Wynne, the translator of Standing Heavy, is an award-winning Irish writer and translator from French and Spanish. Over a career spanning more than twenty years, Wynne has translated a wide variety of authors, including GauZ’, Michel Houellebecq, Patrick Modiano, and Emiliano Monge. This is the third time he has been awarded both the Scott Moncrieff Prize for Translation from the French and he has twice won the Premio Valle Inclán for translation from Spanish. His translation of Animalia by Jean-Baptiste Del Amo won the 2020 Republic of Consciousness Prize.

ABOUT GAUZ’

GauZ’ is an Ivorian author, journalist and screenwriter. After studying biochemistry, he moved to Paris as an undocumented student, working as a security guard before returning to the Côte d’Ivoire. His debut novel, Standing Heavy, won the Prix des libraires Gibert Joseph and the English translation was shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. It was followed by Comrade Papa, which won the 2019 Prix Éthiophile, and Black Manoo. GauZ’ is the editor-in-chief of the satirical economic newspaper News & co, and has written screenplays and documentary films.

BREAKING AND ENTERING longlisted for the REPUBLIC OF CONSCIOUSNESS US & CANADA PRIZE!

Biblioasis is thrilled to share that the longlist for the second annual Republic of Consciousness Prize (US and Canada) worth $35,000 was announced, and it includes Breaking and Entering by Don Gillmor (Aug 15, 2023)! The prize celebrates the commitment of small presses to exceptional literary merit.

Biblioasis publisher Dan Wells says,

“We’re so pleased that Don Gillmor’s Breaking and Entering has made the Republic of Consciousness Prize longlist. As independent booksellers and publishers both, we know how stiff the competition is. I’ve admired this prize since its inception in the UK several years ago, especially the way it highlights both often overlooked books published by smaller independent presses and those very same independent presses themselves. If people paid more attention to who published their favorite books, they’d be disappointed less often: this list is a way to discover things you might otherwise have missed, including Don’s novel, a savage and bleakly funny revelation of the rot and rage resting under the veneer of polite company.”

Chosen from dozens of submissions, the longlist for the Republic of Consciousness US & Canada Prize includes a range of novels and short story collections, including those written in English or another language. Jury Chair Lori Feathers said:

“In this, our second year honoring small publishers in the United States and Canada, we are excited to once again celebrate the accomplishments of independent presses. These longlisted titles highlight the indispensable role of small publishers in bringing books to print that expand the idea of great literature, privileging exceptional writing over commercial sales. Their work demonstrates courage and a commitment to ensuring that fiction of the highest quality and imagination finds its readers.”

A Zoom party celebrating the longlist, with publishers, authors and translators, will take place on Tuesday, February 27 at 6PM CT. The shortlist of five books will be announced on Tuesday, March 5 and the winner announced on Tuesday, March 19. More information about the Republic of Consciousness Prize, founded in 2022, can be found here.

Get your copy of Breaking and Entering here!

ABOUT BREAKING AND ENTERING

An Oprah Daily Best Book of 2023 • One of the Globe and Mail’s Most Anticipated Titles of 2023 • Listed in CBC Books Fiction to Read in Fall 2023 • A 49th Shelf Fall Book To Put On Your List • One of the Globe 100’s Best Books of 2023

During the hottest summer on record, Bea’s dangerous new hobby puts everyone’s sense of security to the test.

Forty-nine and sweating through the hottest summer on record, Beatrice Billings is rudderless: her marriage is stale, her son communicates solely through cryptic text messages, her mother has dementia, and she conducts endless arguments with her older sister in her head. Toronto feels like an inadequately air-conditioned museum of its former self, and the same could be said of her life. She dreams of the past, her days as a newlywed, a new mom, a new homeowner gutting the kitchen—now the only novel experience that looms is the threat of divorce.

Credit: Ryan Szulc

Everything changes when she googles “escape” and discovers the world of amateur lock-picking. Breaking into houses is thrilling: she’s subtle and discreet, never greedy, but as her curiosity about other people’s lives becomes a dangerous compulsion and the entire city feels a few degrees from boiling over, she realizes she must turn her guilty analysis on herself. A searingly insightful rendering of midlife among the anxieties of the early twenty-first century, Breaking and Entering is an exacting look at the fragility of all the things we take on faith.

ABOUT DON GILLMOR

Don Gillmor is the author of To the River, which won the Governor General’s Award for nonfiction. He is the author of three novels, Long Change, Mount Pleasant, and Kanata, a two-volume history of Canada, Canada: A People’s History, and nine books for children, two of which were nominated for the Governor General’s Award. He was a senior editor at The Walrus, and his journalism has appeared in Rolling Stone, GQ, The Walrus, Saturday Night, Toronto Life, the Globe and Mail, and the Toronto Star. He has won twelve National Magazine Awards and numerous other honours. He lives in Toronto.