TRANSLATIONS

Title: Homesickness Is a Forgotten Art

Author: Joël Pourbaix

Translator: Donald Winkler

Genre: Poetry

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 140 pp.

ISBN: 9781772310597

Price: $17.95

Winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry in the French language

Homesickness Is a Forgotten Art is a captivating poetry collection that evokes powerful thoughts on seemingly ordinary human existence. Profound and beautifully enigmatic, the poems recognize the subtle but intricate moments of life that have the power to define us and our perceptions of the world. Through his sublime expression of human passions and contradictions, Joël Pourbaix reveals an innate curiosity about the relationships between the mundane and the sensational. The French-language edition of this book, Le mal du pays est un art oublié, won the 2015 Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry in the French language.

Title: Anarchy of Light

Author: José Acquelin

Translator: Howard Scott

Genre: Poetry

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 64 pp.

ISBN: 9781772310320

Price: $14.95

Winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry in the French language

Anarchy of Light is a wondrous collection of poems intricately written with a remarkable use of language. José Acquelin’s poetry provides luminous insights into our complex lives while being both meditative and lucid. This book reveals the author’s philosophy, his views on poetry, the infinite perspectives of humanity, and the structure of the universe, ultimately revealing a contemplative and skillful mind. The author deeply reflects on contemporary society and the unique role that poetry plays in his career. He invites the readers to revert back to the essential and natural elements of life in order to explore and understand the innate beauty of the universe. The French-language edition of this book, Anarchie de la lumière, won the 2014 Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry in the French language.

Title: For the Despairing Alone

Author: René Lapierre

Translator: Donald Winkler

Genre: Poetry

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 144 pp.

ISBN: 9781772310535

Price: $18.95

Winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry in the French language

This poetry collection is a book for those who do not turn a blind eye to the often desperate state of our world. Presented in a formal and artistic way, the poems cultivate hope and bring us back to what is significant and fundamental in our lives. For the Despairing Alone shows us the small glimpses of joy that watch over us and give us hope for the human world. Relating to nature and botany in a creative way, this book reveals to us that even in small things, such as nature, there can be joy in the turmoil-filled world that we live in today. The French-language edition of this book, Pour les désespérés seulement, won the 2013 Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry in the French language.



Title: Mary the Life Saver

Author: Louis-Philippe Hébert

Translator: Ardeth Neale

Genre: Poetry

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 64 pp.

ISBN: 9781772310207

Price: $16.95

Winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Children's Literature in the French language

Mary the Life Saver is a poetry book that reveals passion, beauty, and the mystery of human spirituality while examining the sophisticated nature of our existence, which is often shrouded by the veil of ordinary life. It is an affectionate and touching story that brings the reader into the tender world of an 8-year-old girl. The book portrays the intricate connections between life and death in a wide array of emotions, which are expressed in a thoughtful and imaginative way with vibrant interpretations stemming from the complexity and simplicity of the human soul. Mary the Life Saver echoes the desire to search for a voice that is as curious as it is distinctive. The French-language edition of this book, Marie Réparatrice, won the 2015 Governor General’s Literary Award for Children's Literature in the French language. 

Title: This Could Be Anywhere

Author: Maude Smith Gagnon

Translator: Howard Scott

Genre: Poetry

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 96 pp.

ISBN: 9781926956831

Price: $15.95

Winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry in the French language

This Could Be Anywhere describes the experiences of places, landscapes, and encounters that typically do not appear to respond to our natural and spontaneous interest in them. The poetry collection visits various locations – Natashquan, Vietnam, Montreal – and seeks to bring out their common nature. We read these poems with the impression that this could be anywhere. In this poetry collection, Maude Smith Gagnon displays a lovely grasp of language through well-crafted narrative touches. In a minimalist form, she pays homage to the intensity of being. Word by word, her poems infuse memory and absence, welcoming the most seemingly insignificant events in the world as the beginning of great things.

Title: Eternity Taking Its Time

Author: Michel Pleau

Translator: Howard Scott

Genre: Poetry

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 64 pp.

ISBN: 9781926956312

Price: $14.95

Winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for poetry in the French language

In Eternity Taking Its Time, Michel Pleau uses simple and moving images that go straight to the heart. He shapes words with painstaking care to give us moments of pure beauty and flashes of luminous landscape. He evokes the nostalgia of childhood in language as refreshing and bracing as the wind. With Eternity Taking Its Time, Michel Pleau invites us to a celebration of the marvellous. Attentive to his worlds, he invites us to go back to the essentials, to natural elements, innocence and light, in order to magnify the beauty of the universe.

Title: Crac

Author: Paul Savoie

Translator: Donald Winkler

Genre: Poetry

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 128 pp.

ISBN: 9781772310238

Price: $17.95

Winner of the Trillium Book Award for Literature in the French language

This poetry collection takes the readers on a fascinating journey filled with unexpected events, revelatory adventures, and perplexing enigmas. The author explores a wide range of human feelings, doubts, and perceptions, inviting us into a world of mystery, fantasy, and suspense. The poems portray the relentless force of water as its waves rumble and pulsate through the streets of a small, fearful village. The landscape becomes desolate, the people vanish without a trace, and darkness filled with the unknown spreads through the streets. Crac depicts supernatural vision, quiet fear, mysterious haunting, and a sense of metaphysical wonder with fascinating surrealism. The French-language edition of this book won the 2007 Trillium Book Award for literature in the French language.

Title: Dreaming Reality

Author: Daniel Groleau Landry

Translator: Howard Scott

Genre: Poetry

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 112 pp.

ISBN: 9781772310085

Price: $16.95

Winner of the Trillium Book Award for Poetry in the French language

Dreaming Reality is an exceptional demonstration of the stunning varieties of human feelings and emotions that are expressed in a vivid way. The poems illustrate the infinite choices of how emotions can be shared in words, perceptions, and symbols. The poet's unique writing style uses metaphors and rhymes to express complex thoughts that nestle within one another. Drawing upon everyday occurrences, common situations, and mystical imagery, the author expertly creates dark and extraordinary fantasies. Dreaming Reality reminds us how poetry can powerfully touch our hearts and minds. The French-language edition of this book, Rêver au réel, won the 2014 Trillium Book Award for poetry in the French language.

Title: Portals of Memory

Author: Michèle Matteau

Translator: Paul Savoie

Genre: Poetry

Format: Trade Paperback, 5.5 x 8.5, 80 pp.

ISBN: 9781772310269

Price: $16.95

Winner of the Trillium Book Award for Poetry in the French language

This poetry collection adeptly explores the human journey while describing the unfolding of a single day in parallel with the seasons of the year. From dawn to dusk, the author revives the voices that have fallen silent and uses lines full of imagery and emotion to evoke the stages of their existence. The secret songs and calls for help, which are torn between joy and pain, certainty and doubt, and revolt and acceptance are illustrated before the eyes of the reader with skillful narration. Portraying the stories of her personal experiences, lived through the book’s characters and described with a vivid appreciation, the author is able to define her life more clearly. The French-language edition of this book, Passerelles, won the 2010 Trillium Book Award for poetry in the French language.