Dany Laferrière has fun with his statue, bristling near the great library of Montreal, and a few meters from the street where, in the 1960s, a police officer arrested him for the sole reason that he was “looking for a Negro”. The years have passed, the native of Port-au-Prince is now statuary by his adopted homeland (a regime reserved for politicians and hockey players), even sacred. And it is with this emblem of Quebec literary excellence that the lightning and intense journey of the French delegation invited by the cousins from America ends.
Their goal ? Show the vitality of Quebec literature a few days before the Paris Book Festival (April 12 to 14), whose guest of honor is Quebec, just twenty-five years after its last invitation. The French academician Dany Laferrière remembers it, who had been on the set of Culture broth For Country without a hat, (story of his return to Haiti twenty years after having hastily left his country). He then joined the very closed circle of Quebec novelists praised in France (Marie-Claire Blais, Anne Hébert, Jean Ducharme, Michel Tremblay, Robert Lalonde, Victor-Lévy Beaulieu…) who, once knighted in Paris, were able to to acquire a certain legitimacy in their country.
Crazy dynamism for such a small province
“No one wanted to write about Quebec literature,” confirms the journalist from The Press, Chantal Guy. Today, Quebec publishing having greatly diversified, boosted by the arrival, around twenty years ago, of numerous independent publishing houses and boosted by the “maple spring” (the student strike of 2012), no more need for the legitimation of the big cousin. The tide has turned: it is after having been greeted in Quebec that the authors come to “conquer” the French public. Leaders, Hélène Dorion, included in the French baccalaureate program, Kevin Lambert, Médicis prize for May our joy remainEric Chacour, the multi-award winner (First Feather, Femina of high school students, Five Continents, etc.) for What I know about youthe thrillers Andrée A. Michaud (Buzzard), André Marois (Holy peace), Chrystine Brouillet and her police inspector Maud Graham, the natives Michel Jean (Kukum) and Joséphine Bacon, the cartoonists Julie Doucet, grand prize of the City of Angoulême 2022 or even Michel Rabagliati who is taking over the youth sections of the world with his delicious series of Paul (at home, at the park, to Montreal… ), to recite nobody else but them.
175 publishing houses, 6,000 titles published per year, 280 bookstores… these figures demonstrate incredible dynamism for such a small province. It is true that culture here is greatly subsidized and supported by public finances. Not a single book is published without benefiting from subsidies from the Canada Arts Council and the Government of Quebec, while all public authorities, media libraries, schools, etc., are obliged to obtain their supplies from bookstores. “Gallic” village with its 9 million inhabitants (including very few readers), very isolated in an English-speaking world with a tendency to increase – Canada expected to be the first immigration country in the world in the coming years, according to from certain experts – La Belle Province wields the weapon of software with rare determination and eloquent results. Because Quebec publishing, rejuvenated and totally uninhibited, is firing on all cylinders, investing, as we have seen, in all genres and placing its flagship authors on the French and even international scene.
Also, boosted by the invitation from the Paris Book Festival, even if rushed (it did not fall until June 23, 2023, the eve of the national holiday), new publishers decided to attack the market French under their own colors, that is to say without going through transfers of rights or co-publishing. A strategy already implemented by the oldest houses, Boréal, Leméac, Libre Expression, or by the most “daredevil”, such as the Lux Québec editions (Euduardo Galeano, Matthew Desmond, Dahlia Namian), La Pastèque (Michel Rabagliati), The Quartanier (Alain Farah, Tristan Saule, Stéphane Larue). And again, Mémoire d’encrier, the first, under the rule of the ardent publisher and poet Rodney Saint-Eloi, to have published the writings of indigenous peoples (An Antane Kapesh, Naomi Fontaine, Joséphine Bacon), La Peuplade (editor wonderful Darknessby Paul Kawczak, by Dominique Scali author of Sailors don’t know how to swim), the editions of Remue-ménage (Martine Delvaux, Florence-Agathe Dube-Moreau) and Québec-Amérique editions (Jean-François Beauchemin, Isabelle Grégoire).
“Today, we accept French American literature as it is”
A cohort to which was added Héliotrope, publisher, among others, of the Ontario-Quebec feminist activist Martine Delvaux and her accomplice Catherine Mavrikakis (Bay City Sky). “We are not out to conquer, we proceed very humbly,” insists the general director of Héliotrope, Florence Noyer. Because this has a cost, you have to pay distributor, broadcaster, bookseller relationship and press officer. “In fact, we must sell at least 1,500 copies in France for it to be profitable,” specifies the management of Le Quartanier. Moreover, some do not risk it, like, in Quebec, Alto, the publisher of Hélène Dorion, Patrick de Witt, Dominique Fortier, Alain Beaulieu or even Eric Chacour. “We chose the association, the French houses do a better job than I could do,” explains Antoine Tanguay, the founder of the editions “with the seven literary awards of the Governor General”.
A literature that is uninhibited, therefore, and peaceful. “The 1960s and 1970s are over, an era of uncompromising demands through the intensive use of joual,” points out Paul Kawszak of La Peuplade editions. Gone are also the days when, conversely, “we wrote to be French,” recalls journalist Chantal Guy, “just like the dark post-war years when books were supervised by the clergy. Today, we accept French American literature as it is. All in a Quebec publishing landscape that has been widely diversified since the 2000s with the emergence of first nations literature, the rise of comics and poetry, the development of crime fiction and the influx of women’s issues.
Also chased away the controversies. The use of inclusive writing? “It’s no longer an issue, it’s totally integrated,” says Martine Delvaux. The use of a “sensitive reader” for one of the characters in May our joy remain by Kevin Lambert? “A storm in a glass of water”, according to Chantal Guy. Quebecisms? “We no longer translate anything, even orally,” we say here and there. To see, because, as we indicated in a survey, in June 2022, if French publishers no longer seek to “put their tongues straight” and only accept characters speaking “in French from France with their mouths crooked”, they intend to facilitate understanding; which can lead to a significant number of modifications, especially in thrillers which traditionally use a popular lexicon.
Still, harmony reigns. And that, for now, France welcomes with open arms all these friendly authors and their no less cordial publishers. Long live free Quebec publishing!
Paris Book Festival, April 12 to 14, Grand Palais Éphémère, Place Joffre, 75007 Paris.
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