Living Colours

Over at the Rover, Neil MacRae reviews Mauricio Segura's Black Alley. Interestingly, this is the first review by a Montreal english language journal/newspaper of this novel, which is about racial tensions and the immigrant experience in Montreal. What is it with that? The book certainly gained plenty attention among francophones when it was published in 1998. Does the anglophone media just not give a shit? Anyone have an answer out there?

MacRae writes, in part:

Mauricio Segura is an established journalist specializing in issues of multiculturalism. Black Alley is his first novel, originally published in French in 1998, and it is primarily an examination of those same issues. But while its thematic concentration and narrative focus are sharp and specific, its scope is much broader. It is certainly a valuable glimpse into the life and nature of conglomerate immigrant neighbourhoods, racial animosities and street violence. It is also a universal coming-of-age story. Marcelo becomes Flaco, leader of the Latino Power gang, and Cléo grows into CB, head of the Haitian gang The Bad Boys, and the tragedy of violent racial conflict between two childhood friends is what the novel is about. But it is as much a story of the need to belong, and the choice that every maturing human is given and must make: will we define ourselves by what is inside us, or who stands beside us? By what we are not, or by what we are?

For the rest of the review, please go here.

For the Real Reader (Not the E-Reader)

This Fall the Literary Press Group is launching its Handmade Campaign, focusing on well-designed physical books in this age of e-reading hysteria. This, to my mind, is one of the more intelligent and creative back-to-the-book promos I've seen in a few years. There's some great titles there, by some of the best indie presses in the land: Coach House, Anvil, Pedlar, Invisible. And Biblioasis, of course.

Zach Wells's Track & Trace, K.D. Miller's Brown Dwarf and Mauricio Segura's Black Alley make up the Biblioasis contribution to this campaign. But if you're looking for some other great Biblioasis titles with that handmade appeal, why not also check out Mike Barnes's Thaw Foretold, Salvatore Ala's Straight Razor, Glenn & Kingwell's Idler's Glossary, Goran Simic's From Sarajevo With Sorrow.

Check in with you local indie bookseller to see if they'll be carrying these titles. For more information please go here.

Biblioasis Translation Series Launch Photos

It's been a bit of a busy time around these parts of late, and I've been meaning to post these photos for some time now. At Blue Met last month two of Biblioasis's Translation Series Authors were in attendance. From all received accounts Horacio Castellanos Moya, pictured above, was one of the hits of the festival, with three scheduled festival events in English and Spanish. Rumour has it that one of these sessions was recorded by CBC for playback at a later date. We'll try and find out when it will run and post a link when we do.
We also launched the latest title in our translation series, Mauricio Segura's Black Alley. A novel about Haitian and Latino gang violence in the Cotes-des-Neiges region of Montreal, it was quite a controversial novel when first published in French more than a decade ago, and it has lost none of its edge in Dawn Cornelio's translation. We're planning to do other events in support of this one. Stay tuned for further details ...

Pictured above, Translation Series Editor Stephen Henighan with Mauricio Segura.

First Review of Black Alley

Mauricio Segura's Black Alley is this season's first installment in the Biblioasis International Translation Series, and the first translation we've published that deals with Canadian experience: in this case, that of Chilean and Haitian immigrants in the Cote-des-Neiges area of Montreal. Stacey May Fowles reviews it in the current Quill & Quire, and says in part:

It’s a shame that so few books explore Canadian urban themes (especially those unique to Quebec) as well as Black Alley does. This long-anticipated translation of Mauricio Segura’s acclaimed and controversial 1998 novel, Côte-des-Nègres, is a unique window into the immigrant experience, city life, and gang violence. ... As the novel progresses we become deeply invested in the poignant confrontation between childhood friends who have become divided by race and gang allegiances. ... What results is a crystal clear and unadorned look at the many intersections of class, race, gender, and generational divide in modern urban Quebec. Black Alley is a distinctly refreshing reading experience.