QC Fiction

In the tumult of the pandemic, a writer hopes the quarantine might provide the space to finally complete a decades-old project on her travels throughout Latin America. But an unexpected disease suddenly clouds her eyes. Poetic, inventive, introspective, Between the Island and the Turtle follows the author's shifts in vision from past to present, shedding light on what it is to witness suffering and illness, ultimately questioning what literature can do in times of crisis. Karine Rosso is the author of Histoires sans Dieu (2011), Mon ennemie Nelly (2019), Interpellations(s): Enjeux de l'écriture au "tu" (2018) and, alongside Nicholas Dawson, Nous sommes un continent: Correspondance mestiza (2021). A cofounder of the feminist bookstore L'Euguélionne, Rosso is a professor of literature at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Anita Anand is an award-winning Montreal author and translator. The author of Swing in the House and Other Stories and A Convergence of Solitudes, Anand is also the translator of Caroline Dawson's As the Andes Disappeared, Juliana Léveillé-Trudel's Nirlitt, and Fanie Demeule's Lightness and Mukbang. Reviews and praise "With her precise and deeply moving writing, the author (. . .) takes us on a journey between the worlds that shape her identity-North and South America."-Malia Navia, Châtelaine "A hybrid text bridging autofiction and social reflection that explores the role of literature in times of crisis." -Audrey-Anne Blais, La Presse "This novel is about loss, about what breaks within you and around you, about commitment and the inevitable exhaustion looming around the bend; it's about the power (or lack thereof) of literature. It is a raised fist, a courageous act of resistance."- Dominique Lemieux, Les libraires

While on vacation with her family in Valencia, Claire Halde witnesses a shocking event that becomes the catalyst for a protracted downward spiral and a profound personal unravelling as she struggles to come to grips with her role in the incident. This haunting novel, which unfolds across three timelines set in as many decades, takes the reader on a dark journey through the minds of three women whose pasts, presents, and futures are decided by a single encounter on a scorching summer afternoon. About the Author Annie Perreault lives in Montreal and graduated from McGill University with a degree in Russian studies and French literature. The Woman in Valencia is her first novel. It was shortlisted for the Rendez-vous du premier roman and was a finalist for the prestigious Prix Ringuet. Her 2015 collection of short stories L'occupation des jours received an Honourable Mention from the Prix Adrienne-Choquette, and she is a previous winner of the Grand Prix littéraire Radio-Canada for best short story. About the Translator Raised in the Laurentian town of Rawdon, Quebec, Ann Marie returned to her native Montreal to pursue a BA in translation at Concordia University and has worked as a commercial translator since 1999. She is the owner of Traduction Proteus Inc., a certified translator, a mentor for aspiring members of her professional order, and a part-time lecturer in translation studies at McGill University's School of Continuing Studies. She earned an MA in translation studies from Concordia in 2018. The Woman in Valencia is her first literary translation. PRAISE FOR THE WOMAN IN VALENCIA Translations of French novels by Quebec authors don't always hit the mark in English Canada. The Woman in Valencia does. [] These emotions, which many of us have known in life, make the novel and characters very accessible and draw us into the story, if only for a brief time. Perreault certainly has demonstrated an exceptional talent for this genre of fiction-writing, and her translator, Boulanger, impeccable work in rendering the novel into English. [] If and when Perreault picks up the pen to write a new novel, I will eagerly read it. For the time being, I will nurture the tender strokes of unhappiness, the shadowy outcomes and the enduring characters of the women in her first novel. (Ian Thomas Shaw, The Ottawa Review of Books) This was a quick read but certainly a remarkable one. It is a book that reflects the human condition well and makes us want to refer to other readers with glee. Well-crafted and thought-provoking, The Woman in Valencia will certainly be a noted novel of the 2021 season. (Steven Buechler, The Library of Pacific Tranquility) some of the best-penned psychological insights into a tortured mind as I've come across in some time [] I truly savoured reading The Woman in Valencia, being fully drawn into Claire's mind through her thoughts, actions, and inactions. (James M. Fisher, The Miramichi Reader) A resounding success! [] an author to watch out for. (Josée Boileau, Journal de Montréal) a thought-provoking read, I particularly enjoyed it because of my close association with Valencia. (Tina, Trip Fiction) A novel in which inaction and avoidance collide, in a masterfully fictionalized retelling of a real-life event experienced by the author. As disturbing as it is moving. (Isabelle Houde, Le Droit) With pitch-perfect prose and an ear for rhythm, Annie Perreault explores the physical and psychological ramifications of anxiety with intelligence and sensitivity. (Anne-Frédérique Hébert-Dolbec, Le Devoir) With her finely honed writing style, the author explores the themes of avoidance, powerlessness in the face of incomprehension, and empathy as a middle ground. (Mario Cloutier, La Presse+) A beautiful novel that deftly addresses the themes of empathy, indifference, and attachment. (Nathalie Roy, Salut Bonjour Weekend) Alternating between tragedy and light, this debut novel forces the reader to question their own sense of compassion and empathy. (Claudia Larochelle, L'actualité) A beautiful novel and an engaging style that stays with the reader. (Yvon Paré, Littérature du Québec)

A spooky feminist novella . . .ideal for Halloween! Deep in the forest, a remote boarding school echoes with unspoken stories... A boarding school deep in the forest carries the echoes of its past inhabitants. Hints of a disturbing history and the unfolding events of the present are refracted by the multiple voices of the girls who now live within its walls, their suggestive and enigmatic accounts interweaving in a rich and unsettling chorus. PRAISE FOR SCHOOL FOR GIRLS "A choral piece with gothic undertones. With an impressive multiplicity of forms, this book tackles a wide variety of themes, underpinned by a strong feminist voice." (Benoît Vanbeselaere, Les Libraires magazine) "A whole troupe of poisonous young girls, neither demonized nor deified, appearing in all the fragile ferocity of adolescence." (Laurence Perron, Lettres québécoises magazine) ". . . dark, fraught, frightening in places. And one to read in a single sitting." (Silvia Galipeau, La Presse newspaper) ABOUT THE AUTHOR Ariane Lessard was born in 1990 in Lévis, not far from a monastery of cloistered sisters. She published her first novel, Feue, in 2018, which was a finalist for the Rendez-vous du premier roman, a first novel award. She also took part in the first residency of L'Hôtel des autrices in 2020, a feminist digital platform created in Berlin during the pandemic, in which she wrote a novel in one month. School for Girls is her first novel to be translated into English. ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR Frances Pope is a translator and writer from the UK. She lived in Montreal between 2015 and 2020, where she received her MA in translation studies from Concordia University. Now living in Bristol (UK), she continues to translate in the arts and non-profit sectors, as well as reviewing and writing about electronic music. Frances has two published collections of poetry, Quarters (Ekstasis Editions) and The Brazen Forecast (Cactus Press), both published in 2020.

Rosa Ost grows up in Notre-Dame-du-Cachalot, a tiny village at the end of the world, where two industries are king: paper and Boredom. The only daughter of Terese Ost (a fair-to-middling trade unionist and a first-rate Scrabble player), the fate that befalls Rosa is the focus of this tale of long journeys and longer lives, of impossible deaths, unwavering prophecies, and unsettling dreams as she leaves her village for Montreal on a quest to summon the westerly wind that has proved so vital to the local economy. From village gossips, tealeaf-reading exotic dancers, and Acadian red herrings to soothsaying winkles and centuries-old curses, Rosa's Very Own Personal Revolution is a delightful, boundary-pushing story about stories and the storytellers who make them - and a reminder that revolutions in Quebec aren't always quiet. "By turns caustic, fierce and moving, this sinuous novel is chock full of interwoven stories, comical scenes and larger-than-life, hilarious characters. The novelist casts his spell to rework historical events in a magical world, blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality, between centuries past and the year 2000 ... Brilliant and exhilarating." (Suzanne Giguère, Le Devoir) "Delightful" (Marie-Claude Fortin, La Presse) "A gem" (Didier Fessou, Le Soleil) PRAISE FOR Eric Dupont's SONGS FOR THE COLD OF HEART "spectacular... original in every sense" (Literary Review of Canada) "masterful... heartbreaking and hilarious" (Publishers Weekly) "highly recommended" (Library Journal) "fiercely readable" (Toronto Star) This book manages to capture the cultural zeitgeist of Quebec culture in the twentieth century. It reminded me of all the great French Canadian novels I read as a child, but pushed them to new, delightful, hilarious, epic levels. [...] I dare you not to read the first three pages and fall in love." (Heather O'Neill, jury member, 2018 Giller Prize) "As magnificent a work of irony and magic as the boldest works of Gabriel García Márquez, but with a wholly original sensibility that captures the marvellous obsessions of the Québécois zeitgeist of the 20th century. It is, without a doubt, a tour de force. And the translation is as exquisite as a snowflake." (Giller Prize jury) ABOUT THE AUTHOR Eric Dupont was born in Amqui, Quebec, in 1970. He left his native Gaspé Peninsula at age 16 for Austria and other faraway locales, returning to Quebec in 2003 to accept a position as a lecturer in translation at the McGill University School of Continuing Studies. His fourth novel, La Fiancée américaine, released in 2012, won the Prix des libraires du Québec and the Prix littéraire des collégiens. Its English translation by Peter McCambridge, Songs for the Cold of Heart, was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2018 and subsequently published by HarperVia, outside of Canada, under the title The American Fiancée. One of the hallmarks of Eric's writing is the juxtaposition of the supernatural and real worlds. The lighthearted tone of his work often belies undercurrents of deeper themes and meanings. ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR Originally from Ireland, Peter McCambridge holds a BA in modern languages from Cambridge University, England, and has lived in Quebec City since 2003. He runs Québec Reads and now QC Fiction. Life in the Court of Matane was the first novel he chose for this collection and the book that made him want to become a literary translator in the first place. His translation of the first chapter won the 2012 John Dryden Translation Prize. His translations have been World Literature Today Notable Translations, longlisted for Canada Reads, and finalists for the Giller Prize and the Governor General's Award for Translation.

September 2008. Alice is 34, a Quebec artist working in London, England. During her residency there, Lehman Brothers, where her friend Laurence works, goes bankrupt. And that same evening, she attends an auction by Damien Hirst. Gregory Monroe, an art collector and hedge fund manager, is also at the auction-and their lives will never be the same again. As the financial crisis strikes and two worlds collide, this love story explores the darkest corners of the contemporary art scene, the global economy, and two broken hearts. _____ Towards the end of the 18th century, twenty-four traders would meet under a tree to buy and sell shares. The tree was located at 68 Wall Street, so called because of a wall that used to mark the northern limits of the colony of New Amsterdam, on the Island of Manhattan. On May 17, 1792, the twenty-four brokers signed, beneath the tree, the Buttonwood Agreement. This marked the foundation of the New York Stock Exchange, and the birth of Wall Street. Today, the tree on Wall Street has long since fallen. And the twenty-four traders' transactions, brokered in the shade of a plane tree, have become complex to the point of being almost intangible and immaterial. Finance has become an abstraction. And it pervades every sphere of our lives. Including contemporary art. Especially contemporary art. Critics' Choice Award, Quebec Association of Theatre Critics (AQCT): Best Show and Best Text PRAISE "I was swept along from Quebec to London to New York, learning about the volatile world of finance and the contemporary art world [...] The relationship between Alice and Greg (which echoes the relationship between art and finance) is intense, tempestuous, and all-too-brief. Entertaining and informative, The Art of the Fall is well worth a read." (James Fisher, The Miramichi Reader) Virtually every scene reveals the workings of the art world or unpacks an economic episode or principle. [...] The play has the rhythm and complexity of the finest stories, the inventiveness and zaniness of a saga. We can almost never predict how the story will unfold." Le Soleil "[The Art of the Fall] brings together an impressive collective of creative minds around the themes of art and the economy: are these spheres really so very far removed from one another? Cerebral and dry though the premise might first appear, the result is nevertheless a performance of remarkable depth." Le Devoir

Émile Claudel is no ordinary child. Only months after his birth, following the liberation of France in 1945, he can already chatter away in several languages, much to his mother's frustration. Nicknamed the Little Fox for his appearance, Émile is born into a loveless home, where patience is in short supply. Abandoned by his family, he struggles to find a place in society. This deftly written coming-of-age novel follows Émile on his journey toward adulthood, as his country moves away from austere conservatism and embraces the counterculture of the 1960s. Reviws: "An intriguing, masterful novel, [The Little Fox of Mayerville] shines." (Les Libraires) "A skillful blend of emotion, hijinks, and adventure, all delivered in lively, imaginative language." (Marie-Michèle Giguère, Lettres québécoises) "The polished prose keeps readers on their toes right to the end." (Mario Cloutier, La Presse Excerpt "On the back of an old, yellowed receipt, I drew up a list of the men in the village who might have been my father. Beside each name, I gave them a score from one to ten. Ten points meant they were the man on whom all hopes were pinned, the man who stood the best chance of being my father. One day my mother found the list under my mattress and threw it away."

Behind The Eyes We Meet is a larger-than-life story that comes in three packages. A lighthearted opening flirts with chick lit before giving way to grim tales of a Russian P.O.W. camp on World War II's Eastern Front, concluding with a fresh, philosophical perspective on life. Verreault uses long-lost family letters, poetry, screenwriting techniques, and more to explore a fascination for Italy, history, and humanity at large in this powerful first novel. This is a lively and intelligent exploration of intertwined destinies and, as hinted at by the choice of title, a realization that we shouldn't judge a stranger until we've walked a mile in their shoes.

The local and the universal come together in these 37 short stories, brought into English by 37 different translators from all over the world. The result gives readers a flavour of the fresh new writing coming out of Quebec-and a reminder that there are at least 37 different ways to translate an author's voice. Translators include literary translation students, first-time and up-and-coming literary translators, world-renowned translators who have won major international prizes, some of Montreal's best writers and translators, a retired high-school French teacher in Ireland, and francophone authors translating into their second language. There are even people in there who (armed only with a dictionary and the priceless ability to write a beautiful sentence) barely speak French.

Nadia Comaneci's gold-medal performance at the Olympic Games in Montreal is the starting point for a whole new generation. Eric Dupont watches the performance on TV, mesmerized. The son of a police officer (Henry VIII) and a professional cook-as he likes to remind us-he grows up in the depths of the Quebec countryside with a new address for almost every birthday and little but memories of his mother to hang on to. His parents have divorced, and the novel's narrator relates his childhood, comparing it to a family gymnastics performance worthy of Nadia herself. Life in the court of Matane is unforgiving, and we explore different facets of it (dreams of sovereignty, schoolyard bullying, imagined missions to Russia, poems by Baudelaire), each based around an encounter with a different animal, until the narrator befriends a great horned owl, summons up the courage to let go of the upper bar forever, and makes his glorious escape. Author Born in 1970, Eric Dupont lives and works in Montreal. He has published 5 novels with Marchand de feuilles and in France with Éditions du Toucan and Éditions J'ai lu (Flammarion). He is a past winner of Radio-Canada's "Combat des livres" (the equivalent of the CBC's Canada Reads contest), a finalist for the Prix littéraire France-Québec and the Prix des cinq continents, and a winner of the Prix des libraires and the Prix littéraire des collégiens. Songs for the Cold of Heart is his fourth novel and his second to be published in English with QC Fiction. It was a finalist for the Governor General's Award for Translation and the Giller Prize. Reviews "This novel from Dupont ... the first from a new fiction imprint dedicated to publishing `the very best of a new generation of Quebec storytellers in flawless English translation,' lives up to that ambition. ... By turns poignant, playful, and nostalgic, the book evokes '70s Quebec with the quirky but successful device of combining an autobiographical family story with motifs drawn from fable, history, politics and myth. ... Translator McCambridge beautifully captures the joyous top notes and the darker undercurrents of this fascinating voice." (Publishers Weekly) "Wildly imaginative ... a remarkably sensitive and intelligent coming-of-age story told with an irresistible blend of heartache, humour and magic." (Numéro Cinq)