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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.

QUERELLE OF ROBERVAL longlisted for the DUBLIN LITERARY AWARD!

We’re excited to share that the Dublin Literary Award has announced their 2024 longlist, which includes Kevin Lambert’s Querelle of Roberval, translated by Donald Winkler. Biblioasis published the novel in 2022, three years after its French edition by Héliotrope.

The Dublin Literary Award is based on nominations from libraries. Bibliothèque de Québec writes of Querelle of Roberval, in their nomination:

“This novel is sad, funny and tragic at the same time, and so close to reality. A book that you read while holding your breath, wondering if the protagonist would dare to make the good choices, while you are worrying for his destiny. Clearly a powerful novel, hard to forget.”

This is the first of Lambert’s books to be nominated for the Dublin Literary Award. The Dublin Literary Award honours excellence in world literature since 1996. Presented annually, the Award is one of the most significant literature prizes in the world, worth €100,000 for a single work of international fiction written or a work of fiction translated into English. The shortlist will be announced on March 26, 2024.

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.

Get your copy of Querelle of Roberval here!

Check out Kevin Lambert’s first novel You Will Love What You Have Killed here.

ABOUT QUERELLE OF ROBERVAL

Shortlisted for the 2022 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize • Winner of the 2023 ReLit Award for Fiction • Longlisted for the 2024 Dublin Literary Award

Homage to Jean Genet’s antihero and a brilliant reimagining of the ancient form of tragedy, Querelle of Roberval, winner of the Marquis de Sade Prize, is a wildly imaginative story of justice, passion, and murderous revenge.

As a millworkers’ strike in the northern lumber town of Roberval drags on, tensions start to escalate between the workers—but when a lockout renews their solidarity, they rally around the mysterious and magnetic influence of Querelle, a dashing newcomer from Montreal. Strapping and unabashed, likeable but callow, by day he walks the picket lines and at night moves like a mythic Adonis through the ranks of young men who flock to his apartment for sex. As the dispute hardens and both sides refuse to yield, sand stalls the gears of the economic machine and the tinderbox of class struggle and entitlement ignites in a firestorm of passions carnal and violent. Trenchant social drama, a tribute to Jean Genet’s antihero, and a brilliant reimagining of the ancient form of tragedy, Querelle of Roberval, winner of France’s Marquis de Sade Prize, is a wildly imaginative story of justice, passion, and murderous revenge.

Credit: Gregory Augendre-Cambron

ABOUT KEVIN LAMBERT

Born in 1992, Kevin Lambert grew up in Chicoutimi, Quebec. He earned a master’s degree in creative writing at the Université de Montréal. His widely acclaimed first novel, You Will Love What You Have Killed, was a finalist for Quebec’s Booksellers’ Prize (Prix des libraires). His second novel, Querelle of Roberval, won France’s Marquis de Sade Prize (Prix Sade), and was a finalist for the prestigious Prix Médicis and the literary prize of the Paris newspaper Le Monde. In Canada, Querelle of Roberval was a finalist for the 2022 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the 2019 Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal, and winner of both the 2019 Prix Ringuet of the Quebec Academy of Arts and Letters and the 2023 ReLit Award. In France, his most recent novel Que notre joie demeure was nominated for the 2023 Prix Goncourt, won the 2023 Prix Décembre, and won the Prix Médicis 2023. Kevin Lambert lives in Montreal. Biblioasis will be publishing the English translation of his next novel translated by Donald Winkler, May Our Joy Endure, in 2024.

ABOUT DONALD WINKLER

Donald Winkler is a translator of fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. He is a three-time winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for French-to-English translation. He lives in Montreal.

CONFESSIONS WITH KEITH wins the 2023 CITY OF VICTORIA BUTLER BOOK PRIZE!

We’re thrilled to share that Pauline Holdstock has won the 2023 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize for Confessions with Keith! Check out the full announcement on their website here.

Mayor Marianne Alto and co-sponsor Brian Butler announced the winner at the 20th annual Victoria Book Prize Gala on October 11, 2023 at the Union Club of British Columbia.

Established in 2004, the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize is a partnership between the City of Victoria and Brian Butler of Butler Brothers Supplies. It awards a $5,000 prize to a Greater Victoria author for the best book published in the categories of fiction, non-fiction or poetry.

Grab your copy of Confessions with Keith here.

ABOUT CONFESSIONS WITH KEITH

Winner of the 2023 City of Victoria Butler Book Prize

An outrageously comic novel documents a middle-aged writer and mother’s grappling with mid-life crisis—her husband’s and her own.

Preoccupied with her fledgling literary career, intent on the all-consuming consolations of philosophy, and scrambling to meet the demands of her four children, the acutely myopic and chronically inattentive Vita Glass doesn’t notice that her house and her marriage are competing to see which can fall apart fastest. She can barely find time for her writing career, and just when her newfound success in vegetable erotica is beginning to take off. Our heroine’s only tried and trusted escape is the blissful detachment of Keith’s hairdressing salon, but when her husband leaves the country, unannounced, she decides to do likewise—in the opposite direction, and with their children. Drawn from the pages of Vita’s journal, this outrageously comic novel documents Vita’s passage through a mid-life crisis and explores all the ways we deceive each other and ourselves.

ABOUT PAULINE HOLDSTOCK

Pauline Holdstock is an internationally published novelist, short fiction writer and essayist. Her novels have been shortlisted for a number of awards, among them the Best First Novel Award, the Scotia Bank Giller prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. Her historical novel Beyond Measure was the winner of the BC Book Prizes Ethel Wilson Award for Fiction. The Hunter and the Wild Girl won the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize. Pauline lives just outside Victoria on Vancouver Island.

ORDINARY WONDER TALES a finalist for the 2023 HILARY WESTON WRITERS’ TRUST PRIZE FOR NONFICTION!

Biblioasis is thrilled to share that Ordinary Wonder Tales by Emily Urquhart (November 1, 2022) has been announced as a finalist for the 2023 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction! You can check out the full shortlist here

The 2023 jury citation for Ordinary Wonder Tales:

Emily Urquhart’s collection of essays about folklore, storytelling, and wonder weaves its own magic as it draws the reader deep into the heart of imagination and possibility. From a haunting childhood encounter to a deeply moving exploration of dementia, Ordinary Wonder Tales delights in the knowledge that the world can be both real and imagined. As we read, we discover that no trauma in a person’s life ever sets them fully apart. Rather, human tragedies are endlessly absorbed and transformed by the wonder tales we share to bring us back to the fullness of life.

“Everyone at Biblioasis is thrilled for Emily,” says Dan Wells, publisher of Biblioasis. “Ordinary Wonder Tales has been a favourite of everyone here at Biblioasis since its publication, a collection open to the everyday magic of everyday life, a book lyrical, meditative, humane and profound. It’s a delightful gathering of essays, and we’re thrilled that the Weston jury felt similarly about it.”

This is the fourth of Biblioasis’ books to be nominated for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction. Reaching Mithymna by Steven Heighton was nominated in 2020, The Great Escape by Andrew Steinmetz was nominated in 2013, and Why Not? Fifteen Reasons to Live by Ray Robertson was nominated in 2011.

The Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction was first awarded in 1997. It is given annually for excellence in the category of literary nonfiction, which includes essays, history, biography, memoir, commentary, and criticism. The winning book demonstrates a distinctive voice, as well as a persuasive and compelling command of tone, narrative, style, and technique. This award has been sponsored by The Hon. Hilary M. Weston since 2011 and is funded this year by the Hilary and Galen Weston Foundation. Beginning in 2023, the prize purse has increased from $60,000 to $75,000. The winner will be announced at the Writers’ Trust Awards on November 21.

Order your copy of Ordinary Wonder Tales here!

ABOUT ORDINARY WONDER TALES

Shortlisted for the 2023 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction

“This book is magical in every sense of the term.”—Amanda Leduc, author of The Centaur’s Wife and Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space

A journalist and folklorist explores the truths that underlie the stories we imagine—and reveals the magic in the everyday.

Photo Credit: Andrew Trant

“I’ve always felt that the term fairy tale doesn’t quite capture the essence of these stories,” writes Emily Urquhart. “I prefer the term wonder tale, which is Irish in origin, for its suggestion of awe coupled with narrative. In a way, this is most of our stories.” In this startlingly original essay collection, Urquhart reveals the truths that underlie our imaginings: what we see in our heads when we read, how the sight of a ghost can heal, how the entrance to the underworld can be glimpsed in an oil painting or a winter storm—or the onset of a loved one’s dementia. In essays on death and dying, pregnancy and prenatal genetics, radioactivity, chimeras, cottagers, and plague, Ordinary Wonder Tales reveals the essential truth: if you let yourself look closely, there is magic in the everyday.

ABOUT EMILY URQUHART

Emily Urquhart is a journalist with a doctorate in folklore. Her award-winning work has appeared in LongreadsGuernica, and The Walrus and elsewhere, and her first book, Beyond the Pale: Folklore, Family, and the Mystery of Our Hidden Genes, was shortlisted for the Kobo First Book Prize and the BC National Award for Canadian Nonfiction. Her most recent book, The Age of Creativity: Art, Memory, my Father and Me, was listed as a top book of 2020 by CBC, NOW Magazine and Quill & Quire. She is a nonfiction editor for The New Quarterly and lives in Kitchener, Ontario.

News & Awards: THE FUTURE, THE ART OF LIBROMANCY, CONFESSIONS WITH KEITH, and more!

THE FUTURE

The Future by Catherine Leroux trans. Susan Ouriou (Sep 5, 2023) was reviewed in the Toronto Star. The review was published August 31st, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Alex Good writes of this post-dystopian novel,

“What makes The Future hopeful is its imagining of new, organic, co-operative (but not egalitarian) communities … savage but caring networks: small, local, and while living close to the edge still managing to get by. It may not be progress, but it is adapting to a vision of the future that hits pretty close to home.”

The Future was also featured in Kirkus Reviews as one of “Eight Big New Fiction Books from Small Presses.” The article was published online on September 6, 2023. You can read the full article here.

Catherine Leroux was interviewed by Nantali Indongo for the CBC Montreal arts and culture program The Bridge on August 26th, 2023. They discussed climate anxiety, dystopian and post-dystopian science fiction, parenting young kids, and what Catherine calls her “writing face”. The one hour interview  is available on demand from CBC Radio here.

The Future has also been named by CBC Books to a list of Fiction Titles to Read for Fall 2023, which was published on August 31st, 2023. Read the list of anticipated fiction titles here.

Get The Future here!

THE FULL-MOON WHALING CHRONICLES

Jason Guriel, author of The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles (August 1, 2023) has been interviewed in the Globe and Mail. The interview was published on August 31, 2023.

You can read the full interview here.

Get The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles here!

STANDING HEAVY

Standing Heavy by GauZ’, trans. by Frank Wynne (October 3, 2023) was listed in The Walrus as one of the “Best Books of Fall 2023.” The article was online September 8, 2023. You can read the full article here.

The Walrus calls it:

“A spry volume of 167 pages … that manages to trade heavily in politics while also sneaking up on your sympathy. I won’t spoil the end, but it startled me in its poignancy.”

Order Standing Heavy here!

THE ART OF LIBROMANCY

The Art of Libromancy by Josh Cook (Aug 22, 2023) was reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press. The review was published online on September 2, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Ron Robinson writes,

“He writes as a fan of thesis, antithesis, synthesis — looking for solutions.”

The Art of Libromancy was also reviewed in That Shakespearean Rag by Steven Beattie. The review was published online on September 5, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Beattie writes,

“In pulling back the curtain to show readers the nuts and bolts of what this entails, Cook has provided a valuable service.”

Josh Cook was interviewed on the Book Storm podcast. The interview was published online on September 5, 2023. You can listen to the full episode here.

Get The Art of Libromancy here!

BREAKING AND ENTERING

Breaking and Entering by Don Gillmor (August 15, 2023) has been reviewed in the Winnipeg Free Press. The review was published online on Sept 2, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Andrea Greary writes,

“Gillmor is a skilled writer.”

Get Breaking and Entering here!

CONFESSIONS WITH KEITH

Confessions with Keith by Pauline Holdstock has been shortlisted for the 2023 Victoria Butler Book Prize! The shortlist was announced on September 7, 2023.

Check out the full shortlist here.

Get Confessions with Keith here!

BIG MEN FEAR ME & ON BROWSING

Big Men Fear Me by Mark Bourrie and On Browsing by Jason Guriel were both nominated for the 2023 Heritage Toronto Book Award! The nominees were announced on September 5, 2023.

Check out the full list here.

Get Big Men Fear Me here!

Get On Browsing here!

News & Awards: HOW TO BUILD A BOAT, ON COMMUNITY, FULL-MOON WHALING CHRONICLES, and more!

IN THE NEWS!

THE FULL-MOON WHALING CHRONICLES

The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles by Jason Guriel (August 1, 2023) has been reviewed in the Toronto Star by Michael Coren. The review was published online on July 29, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Michael Coren writes,

“[T]he book that’s going to get under your skin this summer … dizzyingly interesting … there is something utterly new and exciting here.”

The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles has also been reviewed in Booklist. The review was published online on July 28, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Sal A. Joyce calls it:

“A story with heart, intrigue, and mystery … Lovers of science fiction will find this unlike anything they’ve read before.”

The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles has been featured in Lit Hub and Book Riot. Both articles were published on August 1, 2023.

Read Lit Hub’s “27 New Books Out Today” list here and Book Riot’s “New Releases” list here.

Get The Full-Moon Whaling Chronicles here!

HOW TO BUILD A BOAT

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney (November 7, 2023) has been longlisted for The Booker Prize 2023! The longlist was announced this morning, August 1, 2023. You can read the full announcement here.

The Booker jury writes:

“The interweaving stories of Jamie, a teenage boy trying to make sense of the world, and Tess, a teacher at his school, make up this humorous and insightful novel about family and the need for connection. Feeney has written an absorbing coming-of-age story which also explores the restrictions of class and education in a small community. A complex and genuinely moving novel.”

How to Build a Boat by Elaine Feeney was also reviewed in the Irish Times and RTE Ireland. Both articles were published online on July 22, 2023.

Irish Times calls it a “beautiful meditation on love,” while RTE Ireland calls it a “beautifully-written, tenderhearted story.”

Order How to Build a Boat here!

ON COMMUNITY

On Community by Casey Plett (November 7, 2023) has been featured in Quill and Quire’s 2023 Fall Nonfiction Preview. The article was published online on August 2, 2023.

You can read the preview here.

Order On Community here!

COCKTAIL

Cocktail by Lisa Alward (September 12, 2023) has been reviewed in The Miramichi Reader. The review was published online on August 1, 2023. You can read the full review here.

Lucy Black writes,

“This collection of twelve pristine short stories might best be described as small snapshots of lives shadowed by disquietude. The writing is crisp, accomplished and assured, and the characters are vividly and sympathetically drawn, as they experience the emotional convolutions of individuals struggling between that which they believe to be right and that which they desire.”

Order Cocktail here!

THE ART OF LIBROMANCY

The Art of Libromancy by Josh Cook (August 22, 2023) has been featured in the Chicago Review of Books as one of their “12 Must Read Books of August.” The article was published online on August 1, 2023. You can read the full article here.

Michael Welch calls it

“A necessarily critical look at the practice of connecting readers with their next book in the age of monopolization and censorship.”

Order The Art of Libromancy here!

THE COUNTRY OF TOO

The Country of Toó by Rodrigo Rey Rosa, translated by Stephen Henighan (July 11, 2023) has been reviewed in The Complete Review. The review was published online on July 29, 2023. You can read the full review here.

MA Orthofer calls it

“An appealing panorama of both the country and the different cultures and forces—from Mayan to global-capitalist—at work in it.”

Get The Country of Toó here!

SLEEP IS NOW A FOREIGN COUNTRY & OFF THE RECORD

Sleep is Now a Foreign Country by Mike Barnes (November 7, 2023) and Off the Record edited by John Metcalf (November 14, 2023) were both featured in Quill and Quire’s 2023 Fall Preview: Poetry, Memoir, and Biography. The article was published online on July 26, 2023. You can read the full article here.

Order Sleep is Now a Foreign Country here!

Order Off the Record here!

THE MUSIC GAME wins the 2023 FRENCH-AMERICAN TRANSLATION PRIZE for Fiction!

We’re thrilled to share that JC Sutcliffe has won the 2023 French-American Translation Prize for Fiction for her translation of The Music Game by Stéfanie Clermont! Read the official announcement here.

Since 1986, the French-American Foundation, with the longstanding support of the Florence Gould Foundation, has awarded an annual prize for exceptional translations from French to English in both fiction and nonfiction. JC is joined by the nonfiction co-winners Kieran Aarons and Cédrine Michel, for their co-translation of Self Defense: A Philosophy of Violence by Elsa Dorlin (Verso Books).

The awards ceremony is open to the public and will be held on Tuesday, May 23, 2023 at Hearst Tower in NYC. More information and a link to RSVP, may be found here.

A huge congratulations to JC from all of us at Biblioasis!

Get your copy of The Music Game here!

ABOUT THE MUSIC GAME

Winner of the 2023 French-American Translation Prize for Fiction

Friends since grade school, Céline, Julie, and Sabrina come of age at the start of a new millennium, supporting each other and drifting apart as their lives pull them in different directions. But when their friend dies by suicide in the abandoned city lot where they once gathered, they must carry on in the world that left him behind—one they once dreamed they would change for the better. From the grind of Montreal service jobs, to isolated French Ontario countryside childhoods, to the tenuous cooperation of Bay Area punk squats, the three young women navigate everyday losses and fears against the backdrop of a tumultuous twenty-first century. An ode to friendship and the ties that bind us together, Stéfanie Clermont’s award-winning The Music Game confronts the violence of the modern world and pays homage to those who work in the hope and faith that it can still be made a better place.

ABOUT JC SUTCLIFFE

JC Sutcliffe is a writer, translator and editor. She has lived in England, France and Canada. The Music Game is the ninth Québécois novel she has translated.

ABOUT STEFANIE CLERMONT

Born and raised in Ottawa, Ontario, Stéfanie Clermont travelled throughout Canada and the United States, working at a wide variety of jobs, before settling in Montreal in 2012. The Music Game, her first book, won the prestigious Ringuet Prize of the Quebec Academy of Arts and Letters, the Quebec Arts Council’s prize for a new work by a young artist, and the Adrienne Choquette Prize for short stories. It was a finalist for the Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal and was included in Le Combat des livres, the French-language counterpart of Canada Reads.

TRY NOT TO BE STRANGE, A FACTOTUM IN THE BOOK TRADE, QUERELLE OF ROBERVAL, BIG MEN FEAR ME, and more: Latest Reviews and Interviews!

IN THE NEWS!

TRY NOT TO BE STRANGE

Try No to Be Strange by Michael Hingston (September 13, 2022) has been reviewed by Robert J. Wiersema in the Toronto Star. The review was posted online on September 16, 2022. Check out the full review here.

Wiersema writes,

“That spirit, the tongue-in-cheek mock seriousness of the whole endeavour, and the playfulness of its participants, is a keen factor in Try Not to Be Strange. The book is a delightful reading experience, utterly unexpected and unlike anything you are likely to read this year.”

Try Not to Be Strange was also reviewed by Kevin Hardcastle in Quill and Quire on September 16, 2022. Check out the full review here.

Hardcastle writes,

Try Not to Be Strange is a passionate and skillfully written exploration of an extraordinary world and those who search for such places to get to the heart of what stories really mean. Hingston’s thirst for deeper knowledge is palpable, and it illuminates what the kingdom might really stand for.”

Grab your copy of Try Not to Be Strange here!

 

A FACTOTUM IN THE BOOK TRADE

A Factotum in the Book Trade by Marius Kociejowski (April 26, 2022) has been reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada by Jessica Dunn Wolfe. The article, “Whims and Longings” was published online on September 12, 2022. Read the full article here.

Wolfe writes,

A Factotum in the Book Trade displays the prose style of someone who takes inordinate delight in the unlikely conjunctions afforded by such places. Kociejowski pinpoints the joys of bookstores for readers and booksellers both, while sketching a miscellany of the personalities he has encountered throughout his career.”

Grab your copy of A Factotum in the Book Trade here!

QUERELLE OF ROBERVAL

Querelle of Roberval (August 2, 2022) by Kevin Lambert, trans. by Donald Winkler, has been shortlisted for the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize! The shortlist was announced at 10 am ET on September 14, 2022. You can read the full shortlist here.

The judges’ citation for the Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize:

“Kevin Lambert’s fearless novel is a profane, funny, bleak, touching, playful, and outrageous satire of sexual politics, labour, and capitalism. In ecstatic and cutting prose, it gleefully illuminates both the broad socio-political tensions of life in a Quebec company town and the intimate details of sex, lust, loneliness, and gay relationships in such a place. Like its central character, the book is brash, beautiful, quasi-mythic, and tragic. Most improbably, for all its daring and provocation, Querelle of Roberval is lyrically, even tenderly written.”

Querelle of Roberval has also been reviewed by Aaron Obedkoff in the Literary Review of Canada. The review was published online on September 12, 2022. You can read the full review here.

Obedkoff calls Lambert

“a skilled examiner of depravity … Lambert’s excavation into the depths of desire and provocation is as thrilling as it is disturbing, as beautiful as it is revolting. This is a difficult balance to manage, yet it may well be the key to his success.”

Pick up your copy of Querelle of Roberval here!

BIG MEN FEAR ME

Big Men Fear Me by Mark Bourrie (October 18, 2022) has been reviewed in the October issue of the Literary Review of Canada by Dave Marks Shribman. The review is online as of September 12, 2022. Check out the full review here.

Shribman writes,

“Mark Bourrie’s remarkable—and long overdue—biography of one of the most consequential and least remembered Canadians of the past century. … Bourrie toiled for years to resurrect [George McCullagh], but, I’m glad to say, he did not wipe away the carbuncles, boils, and blisters. His portrait of a man who once was among Canada’s most powerful figures is, to choose two apt terms, both melancholy and masterly.”

Big Men Fear Me was also included by Nathaniel G. Moore in the Miramichi Reader’s ‘Fall Preview Part Two’! The list was published on September 5, 2022. Check out the full preview here.

Moore writes,

“If you love Mad Men and Netflix biopics about ruthless tie-wearing maniacs, if you’re wanting the fourth wall to come crashing down on a discussion about class and poverty … you’ll probably need to pick up [Big Men Fear Me] from Biblioasis.”

Order your copy of Big Men Fear Me here!

THIS TIME, THAT PLACE

This Time, That Place: Selected Stories by Clark Blaise (October 18, 2022) has been reviewed in the Literary Review of Canada. The review was published in print on September 12, 2022.

An excerpt from the review,

“The adolescent yo-yo takes many forms in This Time, That Place (Biblioasis), which recalls an old cigar box filled with undated and often cryptic postcards. […] Individually or as a group, these loosely linked stories will reward multiple readings.”

Grab your copy of This Time, That Place here!

ORDINARY WONDER TALES

Emily Urquhart, author of Ordinary Wonder Tales (November 1, 2022), has been interviewed by Joan Sullivan in the The Newfoundland Quarterly! The interview was published on September 16, 2022. Read the full interview here.

Urquhart says in the interview,

“Our most personal fears, the worries that visit us in our waking night hours, are not new. We feel as if they are specific to us and our lives but once you regain some of your logic in the daylight hours, you can turn to the wisdom in the world’s great folklore bank and discover a story that might help you to understand your most confusing and difficult fears, or, if not understand these fears, at least let you know that you aren’t alone.”

Ordinary Wonder Tales was also included by Nathaniel G. Moore in the Miramichi Reader’s ‘Fall Preview Part Two’! The list was published on September 5, 2022. Check out the full preview here.

Moore writes,

Ordinary Wonder Tales will have readers conjuring up memories of their first encounters with fairy tales, fables, and storytelling … if you’re compelled to imagine the mysterious forgotten worlds of imagination, of fables and possibilities … pick up [this book].”

Order your copy of Ordinary Wonder Tales here!

SHIMMER

Shimmer by Alex Pugsley (May 17, 2022) was reviewed in the Miramichi Reader. The review was published online on September 11, 2022. Read the full review here.

Heidi Greco writes,

“His greatest gift as a writer is, I believe, his ability to carry dialogue … a brave departure from the highly-praised Aubrey McKee.

Pick up your copy of Shimmer here!

CONFESSIONS WITH KEITH

Pauline Holdstock‘s forthcoming novel, Confessions With Keith (September 20, 2022) was featured as an editor’s fall pick on 49th Shelf! The article was published online on September 14, 2022.

You can read the full article here.

Pick up your copy of Confessions With Keith here!

CASE STUDY shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize!

We’re excited to share that Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet (November 1, 2022) has been shortlisted for the 2022 Gordon Burn Prize! Check out the full shortlist here.

The Gordon Burn Prize judges statement:

“A twisting and often wickedly humorous work of crime fiction that meditates on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself.”

Case Study was published in the UK in 2021, and has received wide acclaim since its release. The novel has been shortlisted for the Ned Kelly International Crime Prize, and more recently longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize.

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.

The Gordon Burn Prize was launched in 2012 to remember the late author of novels including Fullalove and Born Yesterday: The News as a Novel, and non-fiction including Happy Like Murderers: The Story of Fred and Rosemary West and Best and Edwards: Football, Fame and Oblivion. The prize is run in partnership by the Gordon Burn Trust, New Writing North, Faber & Faber and Durham Book Festival, and seeks to celebrate the writing of those whose work follows in his footsteps. The winner will be announced on October 13, and will receive a cheque for £5,000 and be offered the opportunity to undertake a writing retreat of up to three months at Gordon Burn’s cottage in Berwickshire in the Scottish Borders.

Preorder your copy of Case Study here!

ABOUT CASE STUDY

Shortlisted for the 2022 Gordon Burn Prize • Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022

The Booker-shortlisted author of His Bloody Project blurs the lines between patient and therapist, fiction and documentation, and reality and dark imagination. 

London, 1965. An unworldly young woman believes that a charismatic psychotherapist, Collins Braithwaite, has driven her sister to suicide. Intent on confirming her suspicions, she assumes a false identity and presents herself to him as a client, recording her experiences in a series of notebooks. But she soon finds herself drawn into a world in which she can no longer be certain of anything. Even her own character.

In Case Study, Graeme Macrae Burnet presents these notebooks interspersed with his own biographical research into Collins Braithwaite. The result is a dazzling—and often wickedly humorous—meditation on the nature of sanity, identity and truth itself, by one of the most inventive novelists writing today.

ABOUT GRAEME MACRAE BURNET

Graeme Macrae Burnet is among Scotland’s leading contemporary novelists. Best known for his dazzling Booker-shortlisted second novel, His Bloody Project (2015), he is also the author of two Simenon-influenced novels: The Disappearance of Adele Bedeau (2014) and The Accident on the A35 (2017). Burnet has appeared at literary festivals in Australia, the USA, Germany, India, Russia, Spain, France, Korea, Denmark and Estonia. His novels have been translated into more than twenty languages and achieved bestseller status in several countries. He lives and works in Glasgow.

HOUSEHOLDERS a finalist for the Firecracker Awards!

Householders coverWe’re thrilled to share that Householders by Kate Cayley (September 14, 2021) has been named a finalist for the 2022 Firecracker Award for Fiction! The shortlist was announced on the Firecracker Awards website on May 18, 2022. Check out the full list of finalists here.

The CLMP Firecracker Awards for Independently Published Literature are given annually to celebrate books and magazines that make a significant contribution to our literary culture and the publishers that strive to introduce important voices to readers far and wide. Each winner in the books category will receive $2,000–$1,000 for the press and $1,000 for the author or translator.

The winners will be announced on June 23, 2022, 7PM ET, at the virtual Firecracker Awards Ceremony. RSVP to watch here!

Get your copy of Householders here!

ABOUT HOUSEHOLDERS

A CBC BOOKS AND QUILL & QUIRE ANTICIPATED FALL BOOK • A LAMBDA LITERARY MOST ANTICIPATED LGBTQIA+ TITLE • 49TH SHELF BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021

Linked short stories about families, nascent queers, and self-deluded utopians explore the moral ordinary strangeness in their characters’ overlapping lives.

A woman impersonates a nun online, with unexpected consequences. In a rapidly changing neighborhood, tensions escalate around two events planned for the same day. The barista girlfriend of a tech billionaire survives a zombie apocalypse only to face spending her life with the paranoid super-rich. From a university campus to an underground bunker, a commune in the woods to Toronto and back again, the linked stories in Householders move effortlessly between the commonplace and the fantastic. In deft and exacting narratives about difficult children and thorny friendships, hopeful revolutionaries and self-deluded utopians, nascent queers, sincere frauds, and families of all kinds, Kate Cayley mines the moral hazards inherent in the ways we try to save each other and ourselves.

ABOUT KATE CAYLEY

Kate Cayley has previously written a short story collection, two poetry collections, and a number of plays, both traditional and experimental, which have been produced in Canada and the US. She is a frequent writing collaborator with immersive company Zuppa Theatre. She has won the Trillium Book Award and an O. Henry Prize and been a finalist for the Governor General’s Award. She lives in Toronto with her wife and their three children.