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Saga Boy: my life of blackness and becoming
“[A] deeply moving memoir...[and] lyrical story.... Suffused with poetic prose that jumps off the page, this inspiring account sings.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Raised by his indomitable grandmother in the lush rainforest of southern Trinidad, Antonio Michael Downing, at age 11, is uprooted to Canada when she dies. He and his older brother are sent to live with his stern, evangelical Aunt Joan, in a tiny northern Ontario community where they are the only Black children in the town. In this wilderness, after a disappointing reunion with his birth parents, he begins his journey as an immigrant minority, using music and performance to dramatically transform himself.
He tries to flee his messy family life by morphing into a series of extravagant musical personalities: “Mic Dainjah,” a punk rock rapper, “Molasses,” a soul music crooner and finally “John Orpheus,” a gold chained, sequin- and leather-clad pop star. Yet, like his father and grandfather, he has become a “Saga Boy,” a Trinidadian playboy, addicted to escapism, attention, and sex. When the inevitable crash happens, he finds himself in a cold, stone jail cell, having become everything he was trying to escape. At the heart of his odyssey is the longing for a home. Richly evocative, Saga Boy is a heart-wrenching but uplifting story of a lonely immigrant boy who overcomes adversity and abandonment to reclaim his Black identity and embrace a rich heritage.
Code Noir
Canisia Lubrin's debut fiction is that rare work of art—a brilliant, startlingly original book that combines immense literary and political force. Its structure is deceptively simple: it departs from the infamous real-life “Code Noir,” a set of historical decrees originally passed in 1685 by King Louis XIV of France defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. The original Code had fifty-nine articles; Code Noir has fifty-nine linked fictions—vivid, unforgettable, multi-layered fragments filled with globe-wise characters who desire to live beyond the ruins of the past.
Ranging in style from contemporary realism to dystopia, from futuristic fantasy to historical fiction, this inventive, shape-shifting braid of stories exists far beyond the enclosures of official decrees. This is a timely, daring, virtuosic book by a young literary star. The stories are accompanied by black-and-white drawings—one at the start of each fiction—by acclaimed visual artist Torkwase Dyson.
Black Boys like Me
“Black Boys Like Me ignited parts of me I honestly didn't believe any book could ever know. . . . Seldom do incredibly titled books earn their titles. Matthew R. Morris earns this classic title with a classic book about our insides.” —Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy
Startlingly honest, bracing personal essays from a perceptive educator that bring us into the world of Black masculinity, hip-hop culture, and learning.
This is an examination of the parts that construct my Black character; from how public schooling shapes our ideas about ourselves to how hip-hop and sports are simultaneously the conduit for both Black abundance and Black boundaries. This book is a meditation on the influences that have shaped Black boys like me.
What does it mean to be a young Black man with an immigrant father and a white mother, teaching in a school system that historically has held an exclusionary definition of success?
In eight illuminating essays, Matthew R. Morris grapples with this question, and others related to identity and perception. After graduating high school in Scarborough, Morris spent four years in the U.S. on multiple football scholarships and, having spent that time in the States experiencing “the Mecca of hip hop and Black culture,” returned home with a newfound perspective.
Now an elementary school teacher himself in Toronto, Morris explores the tension between his consumption of Black culture as a child, his teenage performances of the ideas and values of the culture that often betrayed his identity, and the ways society and the people guiding him—his parents, coaches, and teachers—received those performances. What emerges is a painful journey toward transcending performance altogether, toward true knowledge of the self.
With the wide-reaching scope of Desmond Cole’s The Skin We’re In and the introspective snapshot of life in Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Black Boys Like Me is an unflinching debut that invites readers to create braver spaces and engage in crucial conversations around race and belonging.
Son of Elsewhere
From one of the most beloved media personalities of his generation comes a one-of-a-kind reflection on Blackness, faith, language, pop culture, and the challenges and rewards of finding your way in the world.
Professional wrestling super fandom, Ontario's endlessly unfurling 401 highway, late nights at the convenience store listening to heavy metal—for writer and podcast host Elamin Abdelmahmoud, these are the building blocks of a life. Son of Elsewhere charts that life in wise, funny, and moving reflections on the many threads that weave together into an identity.
Arriving in Canada at age 12 from Sudan, Elamin's teenage years were spent trying on new ways of being in the world, new ways of relating to his almost universally white peers. His is a story of yearning to belong in a time and place where expectation and assumptions around race, faith, language, and origin make such belonging extremely difficult, but it's also a story of the surprising and unexpected ways in which connection and acceptance can be found.
In this extraordinary debut collection, the process of growing—of trying, failing, and trying again to fit in—is cast against the backdrop of the memory of life in a different time, and different place—a Khartoum being bombed by the United States, a nation seeking to define and understand itself against global powers of infinite reach.
Taken together, these essays explore how we pick and choose from our experience and environment to help us in the ongoing project of defining who we are—how, for instance, the example of Mo Salah, the profound grief practices of Islam, the nerdy charm of The O.C.'s Seth Cohen, and the long shadow of colonialism can cohere into a new and powerful whole.
With the perfect balance of relatable humour and intellectual ferocity, Son of Elsewhere confronts what we know about ourselves, and most important, what we’re still learning.
River Mumma
"Wholly original, remarkably crafted, and unmatched in voice. I loved this book!”—Cherie Dimaline, bestselling author of VenCo and Empire of Wild
Issa Rae's Insecure with a magical realist spin: River Mumma is an exhilarating contemporary fantasy novel about a young Black woman who navigates her quarter-life-crisis while embarking on a mythical quest through the streets of Toronto.
Alicia has been out of grad school for months. She has no career prospects and lives with her mom, who won’t stop texting her macabre news stories and reminders to pick up items from the grocery store.
Then, one evening, the Jamaican water deity, River Mumma, appears to Alicia, telling her that she has twenty-four hours to scour the city for her missing comb.
Alicia doesn’t understand why River Mumma would choose her. She can’t remember all the legends her relatives told her, unlike her retail co-worker Heaven, who can reel off Jamaican folklore by heart. She doesn’t know if her childhood visions have returned, or why she feels a strange connection to her other co-worker Mars. But when the trio are chased down by malevolent spirits called duppies, they realize their tenuous bonds to each other may be their only lifelines. With the clock ticking, Alicia’s quest through the city broadens into a journey through time—to find herself and what the river carries.
River Mumma is a powerful portrayal of diasporic identities and a vital examination into ancestral ties. It is a homage to Jamaican storytelling by one of the most invigorating voices in Canadian literature.
In the Upper Country: A Novel
NATIONAL BESTSELLER
WINNER OF THE 2023 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
Shortlisted for the 2023 Governor General's Award for Fiction
Shortlisted for the 2023 Amazon Canada First Novel Award
Longlisted for the 2024 Walter Scott Historical Fiction Award
The fates of two unforgettable women—one just beginning a journey of reckoning and self-discovery and the other completing her life's last vital act—intertwine in this sweeping, deeply researched debut set in the Black communities of Ontario that were the last stop on the Underground Railroad.
Young Lensinda Martin is a protegee of a crusading Black journalist in mid-18th century southwestern Ontario, finding a home in a community founded by refugees from the slave-owning states of the American south—whose agents do not always stay on their side of the border.
One night, a neighbouring farmer summons Lensinda after a slave hunter is shot dead on his land by an old woman recently arrived via the Underground Railroad. When the old woman, whose name is Cash, refuses to flee before the authorities arrive, the farmer urges Lensinda to gather testimony from her before Cash is condemned.
But Cash doesn't want to confess. Instead she proposes a barter: a story for a story. And so begins an extraordinary exchange of tales that reveal the interwoven history of Canada and the United States; of Indigenous peoples from a wide swath of what is called North America and of the Black men and women brought here into slavery and their free descendents on both sides of the border.
As Cash's time runs out, Lensinda realizes she knows far less than she believed not only about the complicated tapestry of her nation, but also of her own family history. And it seems that Cash may carry a secret that could shape Lensinda's destiny.
Sweeping along the path of the Underground Railroad from the southern States to Canada, through the lands of Indigenous nations around the Great Lakes, to the Black communities of southern Ontario, In the Upper Country weaves together unlikely stories of love, survival, and familial upheaval that map the interconnected history of the peoples of North America in an entirely new and resonant way
Aya Claws Come Out
Abidjan’s favorite daughter returns in an all-new volume of writer Marguerite Abouet’s beloved seriesLong-time creative team Marguerite Abouet and Clément Oubrerie make a stunning comeback after a lengthy twelve-year hiatus. Aya: Claws Come Out takes us all back to Yop City—home to the hustle and bustle of the Ivory Coast.
As Solibra’s newest intern, clear-eyed college student Aya finds an unexpected adversary in the beer giant’s brand-new head of HR. Her friend Moussa, heir apparent to the company’s CEO Mr. Sissoko vies for his father’s attention while struggling to tone down his tendency to party. After being outed, Albert must find a new place to stay and grapples with the realities of insufficient student housing. His old flame Inno discovers first-hand how difficult life can be for undocumented migrants in France. Back at home, Bintou navigates the ups and downs of newfound soap opera stardom. All the while, Didier just wants to take Aya out to dinner—if she can ever find the time.
Now translated from the French by Edwige Dro, Aya and all her friends greet the bigger, bolder world of the 80s in true Abidjan style, delighting fans both old and new with vibrant but too often unseen depictions of middle-class life in Africa.
Where I’m coming from
A seasoned cartoonist of epic proportions, Brandon-Croft carves out space for Black women’s perspectives in her nationally syndicated stripFew Black cartoonists have ever entered national syndication, and before Barbara Brandon-Croft, none of them were women. From 1989 to 2005, Brandon-Croft brought Black women’s perspectives to an international audience with her trailblazing comic strip Where I’m Coming From.
Brandon-Croft appraises popular opinion through nine distinct women in constant dialogue. From diets to daycare to debt to the dreaded microaggressions of everyday racism, no issue is off-limits. This remarkable and unapologetically funny career retrospective holds a mirror up to the ways society has changed and all the ways it hasn’t. The magic in Where I’m Coming From is its ability to impress an honest image of Black life without sacrificing Black joy, bolstered by unexpected one-liners eliciting much-needed laughter.
As the daughter of mid-century cartoonist Brumsic Brandon Jr., creator of the second nationally syndicated strip to feature a Black lead, Luther, Brandon-Croft learned from the best. With supplementary writing by the author and her peers alongside throwback ephemera, this long-overdue collection situates Brandon-Croft as an inimitable cartoonist, humorist, and social commentator, securing her place in the comics canon and allowing her work to inspire new readers at a time when it is most needed.
BlackWard
Black, weird, awkward and proud of it. Welcome to the club!
Tired of feeling like you don’t belong? Join the club. It’s called the Section. You’d think a spot to chill, chat, and find community would be much easier to come by for nerdy, queer punks. But when four longtime, bookish BFFs—Lika, Amor, Lala, and Tony—can’t find what they need, they take matters into their own hands and create a space where they can be a hundred percent who they are: Black, queer, and weird.
The group puts a call out for all awkward Black folks to come on down to the community center to connect. But low attendance and IRL run-ins with trolls of all kinds only rock everybody with anxiety. As our protagonists start to question the merits of their vision, a lifetime of insecurities—about not being good enough or Black enough—bubbles to the surface. Will they find a way to turn it around in time for their radical brainchild, the Blackward Zine Fest?
Lawrence Lindell’s characters pop from the page in playful Technicolor. From mental health to romance, micro—and macro—aggressions to joy, our crew tackles everything life throws at them in this heartwarming tale about building a place to belong and the power of community.
Métaspora: Essai sur les patries intime
Lauréat du prix MLA for Independent Scholars 2014
Joël Des Rosiers écrivait dans Théories caraïbes que «chaque écrivain, aux prises avec sa propre mythologie, œuvre pour forger des espaces postnationaux au sein du mouvement général des peuples». Il nomma ces espaces «métasporiques au lieu de diasporiques : à partir des contradictions liées à l’origine, au sexe, à la différence». Ayant la conviction que le vocable « diaspora » était quelque peu galvaudé, Des Rosiers a ressenti la nécessité de proposer dans différentes conférences depuis une dizaine d’années le terme « métaspora ».
L’auteur poursuit ici sa réflexion en rassemblant des textes qui cherchent à accréditer l’idée que l’écrivain enrichit son intimité avec les lieux où il vit et où il a vécu, tout en gardant une conscience aiguë de sa condition itinérante. Lieux, visages, objets : autant de patries intimes qu’il transporte partout avec lui. C’est ce mouvement d’espérance en la primauté du voyage qui les conduit, ses contemporains et lui, à se constituer en métaspora, c’est-à-dire à devenir les cosmopolites de leur propre culture, les étrangers à leur propre nation. Le voyage, en plus d’être une expérience du don et de l’émotion, est aussi une catégorie esthétique, un emblème du Beau.
Théorie des caraïbes: Poétique du déracinement
Nouvelle édition de cet «essai marquant de la décennie» (Joseph Thévenin), paru à l’origine en 1996, augmentée de deux chapitres («Pour une littérature postplantationnaire» et «Tombeaux»), ainsi que d’une préface. À sa parution, Théories Caraïbes s’était mérité le Prix de la Société des écrivains canadiens et le Prix de la Renaissance française.
Théorie, du grec theôria : action de voyager et mouvement des idées sont à l’origine un seul mot dans la langue. Questionnant le corpus des écrivains de la migration caraïbe en France et en Amérique du Nord, cette suite d’essai propose une intelligence de l’appropriation de l’espace continental par les écrivains originaires de l’archipel. Qu’est-ce que la littérature postnationale ? Que devient la notion de territoire ? D’où vient le désir de l’hiver ? Joël Des Rosiers part sur les traces des écrivains qui participent au processus périlleux et interminable de la décolonisation culturelle.
« J'appelle théories caraïbes les groupes d'hommes en larmes, nègres marrons affolés d'amour qui, d'une rive à l'autre, jettent leur langue nationale dans l'eau salée, dans la bouche ouverte, sans fond, de l'abysse. “Voilà notre patrie”, disent-ils, dans le patois des colonies. »
De femmes savantes
Ces femmes ont bien appris la leçon. Les règles, elles les connaissent. Est-ce donc leur faute si, au dernier moment, ça coince? La ligne de khôl, les vœux du Nouvel An, un coiffeur qui vous prend pour Courtney Love, une fin de soirée sans condom, ce plan si simple pour faire renvoyer la vendeuse détestée de toutes…
Prises entre désir de plaire et souci d’authenticité, les femmes et les filles mises en scène par Chloé Savoie-Bernard se délectent de leur solitude jusqu'à l'écoeurement. Quelles parts de soi faut-il enjamber pour atteindre l’autre? Certaines arriveront à faire le grand écart, d’autres non.
Habitées par les sons et les langues de Montréal, par la musique pop et la poésie, ces nouvelles sont portées par un souffle aussi lyrique qu’impur. La contamination est amorcée.
Discours de réception: Médecine et littérature
Ce petit livre reproduit deux discours. Celui prononcé par Joël Des Rosiers lors de son intronisation comme membre de l’Académie des lettres du Québec précédé du discours que Pierre Ouellet a livré pour présenter la candidature de Joël Des Rosiers.
En termes très poétiques Pierre Ouellet rend d’abord hommage à l’œuvre majeure de l’écrivain élu à l’Académie des lettres du Québec, puis le nouveau membre de l’Académie qui, en plus d’être écrivain est médecin, rapproche dans un texte documenté, senti et touchant les deux principales activités de sa vie : la littérature et la médecine. Très ancré dans l’histoire du Québec ainsi que dans l’histoire littéraire, ce texte est une véritable pièce d’anthologie digne des meilleures pages de son auteur.
Un livre qui fait honneur aux lettres québécoises.
Il inaugure aussi la nouvelle collection t-minuscule des éditions Triptyque.
Poème du décours
Lauréat du Prix du livre insulaire de Ouessant, catégorie Poésie
Dans une langue finement travaillée où rythmes et sens s'accouplent et se télescopent sur plusieurs registres, ce livre interpelle la figure emblématique d'Angélique, négresse esclave et rebelle qui, en 1734, fut accusée d'avoir incendié Montréal et pendue au terme du plus important procès tenu sous le régime français en Nouvelle-France. De Barcelone à Montréal, de Jacmel à Pondichery en passant par la Corse, le poète revisite à sa manière l'oblitération historique de cette femme mythique et, avec humour et autodérision, l'histoire mémorielle de ses aïeuls. Il nous invite à voir, dans le plissement musiqué du poème en prose, une originale métaphore de la géographie des corps souffrants et morcelés comme lecture de nos passions, sorte de grammaire du désir, de l'absence et des migrations urbaines modernes.
toutes marges ourlées au front de mer moquant la houle
qui vrombit en ses crêtes ses cathédrales raillant aussi les
amulettes grosses de présages à refaire sans doute en vain
le tour des mappemondes je reviens vers mon quai d’attache
arceau lové à geste comptée tu sais si j’ai traversé bien des
frontières c’est qu’on les disait interdites de séjour à la soif
des rétines et mon ultime voyage vers moi vers cette île
banquise que je porte dans ma tête aura été tracé
par décours de mes lampes
Simoun
Dans Simoun, Robert Berrouët-Oriol aborde les vastes espaces du désert sahélien. Le simoun est un vent désertique : chaud et violent, chargé de tourbillons de sable, il souffle, entre autres, dans le Sahara. À l’image de ce vent puissant, l’auteur déporte sa fiction poétique vers différents lieux géographiques et arpente de nouveaux parcours de l’intime. Car ce livre se lit également comme un long poème d’amour, qui sert à conjurer l’absence de l’être aimé. Ici, le poète nous offre un lyrisme maîtrisé et une langue soutenue, finement ciselée. En plus d’explorer les territoires géographiques et intimes, Berrouët-Oriol s’intéresse aussi, de façon plus large, à la figure de l’Autre dans la poésie québécoise et à l’esthétique de la langue poétique.
La Couleur de l’adoption
Ce livre important et émouvant donne la voix à trente-huit personnes adoptées de différents âges et d’origines diverses qui résident sur l’ensemble du territoire québécois. Chacun exprime à sa façon des sentiments similaires, complémentaires ou même opposés concernant leur expérience de l’adoption. Elles trouvent ici une occasion de s’approprier leur narration et d’illustrer à quel point elles changent le visage de l’identité québécoise contemporaine.
Les jeux du dissemblable : Folie, marge et féminin en littérature haïtienne contemporaine
Pourquoi se multiplient des figures de la folie et du féminin dans le paysage littéraire depuis la deuxième moitié du XXe siècle et le tournant du millénaire? En remarquant les grandes tendances qui font coïncider l'expression de la catastrophe et de la défaite du sens ainsi que l'apparition de figures et de personnages féminins importants dans des œuvre de tous genres, Stéphane Martelly aborde la folie, la marge et le féminin en tant qu'expressions concourantes de la dissemblance dans les écrits majeurs de Marie Vieux Chauvet, Frankétienne, Davertige, Jan J. Dominique et Lyonel Trouillot. Dans une langue, à la fois savante et lyrique, l'auteure se penche sur le jeu rhétorique des postures de la dissemblance et la manière dont elles pointent depuis le texte vers un au-delà de l'œuvre, qui indique l'«l’espace ménager» de sa propre faillite ainsi que le travail de la lecture et de la création. Le dissemblable devient alors cet objet fuyant d'une lecture impliquée dans laquelle, le regard critique s'adossant à une écriture littéraire et à un travail pictural chargés d'en interrompre le flux, se constitue en effet ce «moment insolite de la théorie» qui la maintient en échec tout en la faisant parler.
Inventaire
Femme de peu de durée, l’auteure s’attache à faire l’inventaire d’un monde qui se dérobe sous ses doigts: objets épars et incomplets, restes d’émotions, bouts de récits entendus ou inventés, bribes de conversations.
La poésie de l’inventaire est celle de la liste et du défaut, de l’ascèse et de la fabrication. L’écriture qui demeure se fait alors décompte (inventaire), possibilité (invention) et argument (inventio).
Une douleur coupée drue
en biseau
et rien
rien qui puisse amoindrir
l’angoisse
tenir tout bien ficelé
corseté
fermer la main
de peur que les choses ne lâchent
Si elles lâchent
c’est la fin
Équateur Magnétique
Entre l’Amérique du Sud et celle du Nord, les poèmes de ce livre dérivent. Ils cherchent une ancestralité à Georgetown, au Guyana, dans la forêt amazonienne et dans l’Atlantique. Ils retournent aux années 1980, en banlieue de Calgary et dans les quartiers montréalais emmurés dans la neige post-référendaire. Comme la traversée des vaisseaux noirs jusqu’à la terre ferme, ces poèmes se fraient un chemin dans ce monde et peinent à expliquer l’état d’une personne scindée en deux hémisphères. Présents dans un ici tout en portant les battements de l’ailleurs, les poèmes d’Équateur magnétique cartographient les distances parcourues.
Leave my bones in Saskatoon
Seen through the eyes of Owoicho, a television presenter seeking a better life for himself and his family, Leave my Bones in Saskatoon spans two cultures and continents. It is honest, heartfelt and enlightening.
The story begins with Owoicho’s good news. He can’t wait to tell his family that their permanent residency application to Canada was successful. But while he was in Abuja, happy about this breakthrough, somewhere in the outskirts of Makurdi, a dark and troubling event threatens to torpedoe all the plans he and his wife, Ene had of moving their family to Saskatoon. We also meet Ochanya, Owoicho’s teenage daughter who has to deal with the twin shock of losing close family and the unavoidable transition from girl to adolescence that pitches her against the people that love and care for her the most.
With everything Owoicho and Ochanya have to deal with, do they still make it out to Canada as planned and whose bones is in Saskatoon?
Don’t answer when they call your name
When the streams suddenly run dry in Ani Mmadu, the people know it is time to atone for a sin that goes back to the very beginning of their world, the consequence of the rebellion of one woman against the all-powerful and unforgiving, jealous god. To avert this catastrophe and for the waters to flow and nourish the farms again, the people must send a child of Aja, chosen by the Oracle, into the Forest of Iniquity, to atone for that great sin. It falls on young Adanne to save her people this time. But the Ajas sent into the dreaded forest tend never to return. Is Adanne the long-awaited one who will buck the trend and end the suffering of her people? This is an extraordinary novel bursting with kaleidoscopic worlds and beings. It is a feat of the imagination from a born storyteller.
Sons of the East: a Novel
The seven-year apprenticeship of Jasper Okonkwo has finally ended. He sets up a shop in the bustling city of Lagos, aiming to climb the social circles and be reckoned with. But he has not reckoned with his older brother, the envious, greedy, and malicious Zona, who is hellbent on being the lone star in the Okonkwo household. The agitation of the Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB) for independence erupts. The Nigerian government begins to clamp down mercilessly on the dissidents. It is the opportunity that Zona is waiting for.
The rights of Indigenous peoples explained
Hey Child, I am excited to simplify the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) for you. You are special and you deserve to know that the Indigenous People around you have rights. You should, at all times, respect and acknowledge their rights.
On Accounts of Darkness: Shining a Light on Race and Sport
For marginalized athletes past and present, achievement can bring celebrity without equality and recognition without opportunity
In many ways, Ontario’s Chatham-Kent region is a microcosm of Canadian multiculturalism. As a terminus of the Underground Railroad, it has long been home to a large Black community, Walpole Island and Delaware First Nations are nearby, and many interned Japanese Canadians worked on local farms during World War II. The history of sport in the region is emblematic of the challenges that have confronted generations of non-white athletes nationwide. Each chapter uses the story of a local athlete—some famous, others more obscure—to illuminate one aspect of the evolving relationship between race and sport in North America. Combining tales of personal triumph with sports history and social commentary, On Account of Darkness examines systemic racism and ambivalent attitudes that persist to this day.
Made in Madagascar: Sapphires, Ecotourism, and the Global Bazaar
Since the 1990s, the Ankarana region of northern Madagascar has developed a reputation among globe-trotting gemstone traders and tourists as a source of some of the world's most precious natural wonders. Although some might see Ankarana's sapphire and ecotourist trades as being at odds with each other, many local people understand these trades to be fundamentally connected, most obviously in how both serve foreign demand for what Madagascar has to offer the world. Walsh explores the tensions and speculations that have come with the parallel emergence of these two trades with sensitivity and a critical eye, allowing for insights into globalization, inequality, and the appeal of the "natural."
In Light of Africa: Globalizing Blackness in Northeast Brazil
In Light of Africa explores how the idea of Africa as a real place, an imagined homeland, and a metaphor for Black identity is used in the cultural politics of the Brazilian state of Bahia. In the book, Allan Charles Dawson argues that Africa, as both a symbol and a geographical and historical place, is vital to understanding the wide range of identities and ideas about racial consciousness that exist in Bahia’s Afro-Brazilian communities.
In his ethnographic research, Dawson follows the idea of “Africa” from the city of Salvador to the West African coast and back to the hinterlands of the Bahian interior. Along the way, he encounters West African entrepreneurs, Afrobeat musicians, devotees of the Afro-Brazilian religion Candomblé, professors of the Yoruba language, and hardscrabble farmers and ranchers, each of whom engages with the “idea of Africa” in their own personal way.
Displacing Blackness: Planning, Power, and Race in Twentieth-Century Halifax
Modern urban planning has long promised to improve the quality of human life. But how is human life defined? Displacing Blackness develops a unique critique of urban planning by focusing, not on its subservience to economic or political elites, but on its efforts to improve people’s lives.
While focused on twentieth-century Halifax, Displacing Blackness develops broad insights about the possibilities and limitations of modern planning. Drawing connections between the history of planning and emerging scholarship in Black Studies, Ted Rutland positions anti-blackness at the heart of contemporary city-making. Moving through a series of important planning initiatives, from a social housing project concerned with the moral and physical health of working-class residents to a sustainability-focused regional plan, Displacing Blackness shows how race – specifically blackness – has defined the boundaries of the human being and guided urban planning, with grave consequences for the city’s Black residents.
Settling Down and Settling Up: The second generation in Black Canadian and Black British Women’s Writing
Comparing second generation children of immigrants in black Canadian and black British women’s writing, Settling Down and Settling Up extends discourses of diaspora and postcolonialism by expanding recent theory on movement and border crossing. While these concepts have recently gained theoretical currency, this book argues that they are not always adequate frameworks through which to understand second generation children who wish to reside "in place" in the nations of their birth.
Considering migration and settlement as complex, interrelated processes that inform each other across multiple generations and geographies, Andrea Katherine Medovarski challenges the gendered constructions of nationhood and diaspora with a particular focus on Canadian and British black women writers, including Dionne Brand, Esi Edugyan, and Zadie Smith. Re-evaluating gender and spatial relations, Settling Down and Settling Up argues that local experiences, often conceptualized through the language of the feminine and the domestic in black women’s writings, are no less important than travel and border crossings.
Colour Matters: Essays on the Experiences, Education, and Pursuits of Black Youth
Based on research conducted in Black communities, along with over thirty years of teaching experience, Colour Matters presents a collection of essays that engages educators, youth workers, and policymakers to think about the ways in which race shapes the education, aspirations, and achievements of Black Canadians. Informed by the current socio-political Canadian landscape, Colour Matters covers topics relating to the lives of Black youth, with particular, though not exclusive, attention to young Black men in the Greater Toronto Area.
The essays reflect the issues and concerns of the past thirty years, and question what has changed and what has remained the same. Each essay is accompanied by an insightful response from a scholar engaging with topics such as immigration, schooling, athletics, mentorship, and police surveillance. With the perspectives of scholars from the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada, Colour Matters provides provocative narratives of Black experiences that alert us to what more might be said, or said differently, about the social, cultural, educational, political, and occupational worlds of Black youth in Canada. This book probes the ongoing need to understand, in nuanced and complex ways, the marginalization and racialization of Black youth in a time of growing demands for a societal response to anti-Black racism.
Coloniality and Racial (In)Justice in the University
Coloniality and Racial (In)Justice in the University examines the disruption and remaking of the university at a moment in history when white supremacist politics have erupted across North America, as have anti-racist and anti-colonial movements. Situating the university at the heart of these momentous developments, this collection debunks the popular claim that the university is well on its way to overcoming its histories of racial exclusion.
Written by faculty and students located at various levels within the institutional hierarchy, this book demonstrates how the shadows of settler colonialism and racial division are reiterated in "newer" neoliberal practices. Drawing on critical race and Indigenous theory, the chapters challenge Eurocentric knowledge, institutional whiteness, and structural discrimination that are the bedrock of the institution.
The authors also analyse their own experiences to show how Indigenous dispossession, racial violence, administrative prejudice, and imperialist militarization shape classroom interactions within the university.
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Nuances of Blackness in the Canadian Academy: teaching, learning, and Researching while Black
The essays in Nuances of Blackness in the Canadian Academy make visible the submerged stories of Black life in academia. They offer fresh historical, social, and cultural insights into what it means to teach, learn, research, and work while Black.
In daring to shift from margin to centre, the book’s contributors confront two overlapping themes. First, they resist a singular construction of Blackness that masks the nuances and multiplicity of what it means to be and experience the academy as Black people. Second, they challenge the stubborn durability of anti-Black tropes, the dehumanization of Blackness, persistent deficit ideologies, and the tyranny of low expectations that permeate the dominant idea of Blackness in the white colonial imagination.
Operating at the intersections of discourse and experience, contributors reflect on how Blackness shapes academic pathways, ignites complicated and often difficult conversations, and reimagines Black pasts, presents, and futures. This unique collection contributes to the articulation of more nuanced understandings of the ways in which Blackness is made, unmade, and remade in the academy and the implications for interrelated dynamics across and within post-secondary education, Black communities in Canada, and global Black diasporas.
Biographical Dictionary of Enslaved Black People in the Maritimes
This important book sheds light on more than 1,400 brief life histories of mostly enslaved Black people, with the goal of recovering their individual lives.
Harvey Amani Whitfield unearths the stories of men, women, and children who would not otherwise have found their way into written history. The individuals mentioned come from various points of origin, including Africa, the West Indies, the Carolinas, the Chesapeake, and the northern states, showcasing the remarkable range of the Black experience in the Atlantic world. Whitfield makes it clear that these enslaved Black people had likes, dislikes, distinct personality traits, and different levels of physical, spiritual, and intellectual talent. Biographical Dictionary of Enslaved Black People in the Maritimes affirms the notion that they were all unique individuals, despite the efforts of their owners and the wider Atlantic world to dehumanize and erase them.
Unsettling the Great White North
An exhaustive volume of leading scholarship in the field of Black Canadian history, Unsettling the Great White North highlights the diverse experiences of persons of African descent within the chronicles of Canada’s past. The book considers histories and theoretical framings within the disciplines of history, sociology, law, and cultural and gender studies to chart the mechanisms of exclusion and marginalization in "multicultural" Canada and to situate Black Canadians as speakers and agents of their own lives. Working to interrupt the myth of benign whiteness that has been deeply implanted into the country’s imagination, Unsettling the Great White North uncovers new narratives of Black life in Canada.
Performing Postracialism
Blackface – instances in which non-Black persons temporarily darken their skin with make-up to impersonate Black people, usually for fun, and frequently in educational contexts – constitutes a postracialist pedagogy that propagates antiblack logics.
In Performing Postracialism, Philip S.S. Howard examines instances of contemporary blackface in Canada and argues that it is more than a simple matter of racial (mis)representation. The book looks at the ostensible humour and dominant conversations around blackface, arguing that they are manifestations of the particular formations of antiblackness in the Canadian nation state and its educational institutions. It posits that the occurrence of blackface in universities is not incidental, and outlines how educational institutions’ responses to blackface in Canada rely upon a motivation to protect whiteness.
Performing Postracialism draws from focus groups and individual interviews conducted with university students, faculty, administrators, and Black student associations, along with online articles about blackface, to provide the basis for a nuanced examination of the ways that blackface is experienced by Black persons. The book investigates the work done by Black students, faculty, and staff at universities to challenge blackface and the broader campus climate of antiblackness that generates it.
Autowar
A Visceral, vital, unblinking debut collection of poems exploring kinesthetic memory and longing, inherited violence, and the body as a geographical site.
Bottom Rail on Top
Somewhere in the cut between Harriet Jacobs and surveillance, Southampton and sneaker game, Lake Providence and the supply chain, Bottom Rail on Top sees D.M. Bradofrd stage one personal present alongside American Histories of antebellum Black life and emancipation
Le Dantou
Le contenu de mon ouvrage relate que les danses guerrières des traditions africaines (Afros Genèses) ont joué un rôle primordial dans la culture du sport de combat en Afrique mère, au Brésil, et dans les Caraïbes. Ces danses guerrières actualisent jusqu’à présent l’héritage sacré de l’enseignement d’autodéfense ancestrale à travers le Dantou. L’originalité de Dantou (art Martial) consistant en une nette démarcation entre sa codification de langage et celle des autres arts martiaux. Son contenu reflète et résume très bien sa définition de l’art martial traditionnel. Enfin le Dantou poursuit la vision de l’art Montou, de l’art Ogou et de l’art Azuli-Dantò en poursuivant leurs enseignements de la maîtrise du mental et de l’auto amélioration de soi pour perpétuer les bases des arts martiaux Africains (Afr-Génèse, Afro-Descendant). Que vous soyez experts ou profanes, vous trouverez dans le Dantou, l’essentiel d’una rt guerrier traditionnel Vodou: une manière de vivre en harmonie avec le monde visible et invisible qui vous entoure.
Boonoonoonous Hair
In this vibrant and exquisitely illustrated picture book by Jamaican-Canadian writer Olive Senior and acclaimed artist Laura James (the team that created the best-selling Anna Carries Water), a young girl learns to love her difficult-to-manage voluminous and Boonoonoonous Hair.
Anna Carries Water
Anna fetches water from the spring every day, but she can’t carry it on her head like her older brothers and sisters. In this charming and poetic family story set in Jamaica, Commonwealth Prize-winning author Olive Senior shows young readers the power of determination, as Anna achieves her goal and overcomes her
Visibles! Figures noires de l’histoire de France
Des pionnières de la littérature, un esclave affranchi devenu le chef cuisinier le plus couru de Bordeaux, une chanteuse d’opéra à la carrière internationale, un aviateur héros des deux guerres mondiales…
Ces hommes et ces femmes sont noirs et ont fait l’Histoire de France. Pourtant, ils ont été oubliés dans le roman national. Dans des domaines aussi variés que les arts et la culture, la politique, le sport ou les sciences, on trouve des vedettes, des héros, des inventeurs ou des champions. Par leur talent, leur parcours hors norme ou leur engagement, ils et elles ont brisé les plafonds de verre et lutté pour l’égalité et la liberté.
À travers 40 portraits magnifiquement illustrés où l’on retrouvera, aux côtés de figures méconnues, le célèbre auteur des Trois Mousquetaires ou encore l’icône du music-hall et héroïne de la Résistance Joséphine Baker, c’est une histoire de France plus riche que nous redécouvrons.
The Possible Lives of WH, Sailor
In this deeply moving poetic narrative, author/artist Bushra Junaid gives presence to WH, a mysterious nineteenth-century sailor whose remains were discovered in Labrador in the late 1980s. What little can be deduced about WH archaeologically is that he was of African heritage, and buried alone on the coast of a forbidding landscape. Junaid’s poem embraces the mystery of WH, ponders his life—who he might have been, how he might have lived—and in so doing not only offers a daring look at the history of the African experience in North America, but claims as kin a man isolated, alone, and until now, forgotten.
The book includes a timeline and background information about the Black history of the North Atlantic, as well as suggestions for further reading.
Le petit garçon qui venait de la Jamaïque
Guide pédagogique gratuit
À l’enfant qui tient ce livre :
Crois-tu qu’une personne comme toi pourrait marquer l’histoire? N’en doute pas. Lis ce récit et tu découvriras comment Devon, un petit garçon qui venait de la Jamaïque, est entré dans l’histoire du Canada. Tu verras que tout est possible et que les rêves peuvent se réaliser.
Aux parents, aux enseignants et à toute personne concernée par le bien-être d’un enfant:
L’histoire d’une personne ayant surmonté des difficultés pour atteindre l’impossible est une source d’inspiration sans pareille, surtout quand il s’agit d’un enfant. Il n’y a pas de meilleur exemple que celui de Devon Clunis, Jamaïcain élevé à la campagne sans électricité ou eau courante, pourtant devenu le premier chef de police noir du Canada.
À la découverte du Canada: L’héritage Noir
On estime que plus de 60 millions d’Africains ont été arrachés à leur famille, leur culture, leur religion pour devenir des esclaves. Victimes de préjugés et de violence, l’histoire des Noirs se résume en un dur combat mené avec force, détermination et courage. Partez à la rencontre de sportifs de renom, de brillants inventeurs, de journalistes talentueux et bien d’autres personnalités fortes.
Bien trop souvent oubliés, découvrez ces personnages fascinants et les évènements marquants de cette période et comment ils ont contribué à façonner l’histoire et la culture du Canada.
De petit À GRAND: Martin Luther King
Martin Luther King a été élevé dans une famille de pasteurs. Un jour, un ami l’a invité à jouer chez lui, mais la mère du garçon a refusé de laisser entrer Martin à cause de la couleur de sa peau. Il a alors compris que quelque chose ne tournait pas rond. Il s’est promis que, lorsqu’il serait grand, il combattrait les injustices, et qu’il le ferait avec la plus redoutable des armes : les mots. Aujourd’hui, son nom est associé à la naissance du grand mouvement de lutte contre la ségrégation raciale aux États-Unis.
De petit À GRAND: Jean-Michel Basquiat
Tout petit, Jean-Michel Basquiat adorait déjà visiter des musées et dessiner. Il avait promis à son père qu’il deviendrait un artiste célèbre, et il ne s’était pas trompé. Inspirée de l’univers du graffiti, son œuvre, forte et originale, a fait de lui l’une des figures marquantes de l’art au 20e siècle.
De petite À GRANDE: Rosa Parks
Petite, Rosa Parks était déjà sensible aux injustices dont les Noirs étaient victimes dans le sud des États-Unis. Alors que les Blancs prenait l’autobus pour aller à leur grande école, elle devait -marcher des kilomètres pour se rendre à la minuscule sienne. Cette femme calme mais déterminée s’est rendue célèbre en refusant de laisser son siège à un homme blanc dans l’autobus, comme la loi de l’époque l’exigeait. Son geste a servi de déclencheur à un mouvement de grande ampleur : le boycott des bus de Montgomery. Rosa Parks est une figure importante de la lutte contre la ségrégation raciale dans les lieux publics.
Porté par des illustrations colorées et vivantes, l’album De petite à grande, Rosa Parks permet d’aborder des thèmes importants et nécessaires comme l’égalité des droits et le respect de soi.
De petite À GRANDE: Mae Jemison
Enfant, Mae Jemison regardait les étoiles et savait qu’elle irait un jour à leur rencontre. Mais elle ne comprenait pas pourquoi aucun astronaute ne lui ressemblait. Après avoir étudié à l’université, elle a suivi ses rêves et marqué l’histoire en devenant la première femme noire à explorer l’espace.
De petite À GRANDE: Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman est née aux États-Unis dans une famille d’esclaves. Une fois adulte, elle a réussi à s’enfuir vers le nord du pays, où l’esclavage était interdit. Elle est ensuite retournée dans le Sud pour aider d’autres personnes à accéder à la liberté. Cette femme intelligente et courageuse a inspiré plusieurs générations d’Afro-Américains et d'Afro-Américaines dans leur lutte pour l’égalité et les droits de la personne.
De petite À GRANDE: Ella Fitzgerald
La petite Ella aimait aussi énormément chanter et danser. Après une adolescence difficile, marquée par la mort de sa mère, elle a commencé à faire des spectacles dans les rues de Harlem pour gagner sa vie. Jamais elle n’aurait pu imaginer qu’un jour, grâce à son immense talent, elle serait connue à travers le monde et qu’on la surnommerait la Grande Dame du jazz.
Dans l’ombre du Soleil
Jusqu’au xxe siècle, les Noirs sont rarement représentés dans la littérature et l’art des nations occidentales et, quand ils le sont, ils n’apparaissent presque jamais comme des êtres humains à part entière. Mais que se passe-t-il lorsque nous décidons d’accorder une attention centrale à ces hommes et ces femmes jusqu’alors relégués dans les marges de nos récits et de nos représentations ? Dans quelle mesure ce renversement des perspectives vient-il remettre en question et complexifier notre compréhension de l’histoire ainsi que de notre identité individuelle et collective ?
À mi-chemin entre l’essai littéraire, le récit de vie et la chronique historique, Dans l’ombre du soleil propose une méditation nuancée et perspicace sur l’identité, l’art et l’appartenance ainsi que sur le refuge et le réconfort que nous offrent les histoires que nous inventons et transmettons au fil des générations. S’appuyant sur l’analyse de nombreuses œuvres picturales, littéraires et cinématographiques, la romancière Esi Edugyan met en lumière son propre parcours de Canadienne née à Calgary de parents ghanéens et celui de personnes noires longtemps restées dans l’ombre. Au passage, elle se prononce sur les nombreux débats artistiques et sociétaux qui ont marqué l’actualité ces dernières années dans la foulée de mouvements comme Black Lives Matter.
Un livre essentiel qui fait la démonstration que ce que nous ignorons en dit autant sur nous-mêmes que ce que nous célébrons.
La Frugalité du Temps
Nos banques de données généalogiques parmi les plus complètes et sophistiquées sur le marché nous permettent de vous offrir une expérience immersive dans votre histoire familiale. Voyez vos ancêtres s’animer devant vous. Observez comment ils vivaient. Interagissez avec eux…
Passionnée de généalogie, Annick Paradis est intriguée par cette publicité aperçue sur l’un des sites de recherche qu’elle fréquente assidûment et elle décide de tenter l’expérience.
Or, ces séances sont si stimulantes que, à chacun de ses retours, Annick trouve de plus en plus ennuyeux son emploi, de plus en plus distante sa compagne. Et que penser de ces pertes de mémoire qui l’accablent ?
Le prince africain, le traducteur et le nazi
L’incipit du roman nous situe à la Gare du Nord, en 1941, alors que le Prince Antonio, après plusieurs années passées à Paris où il se livre au trafic de diamants, prend le train pour Lisbonne et fuit l’Occupation. Jean de Dieu reste derrière pour liquider les affaires et organiser le départ de la compagne du prince, Sarah, une Polonaise d’origine juive, et de leur enfant. Les activités du prince ont attiré l’attention du major Baumeister, un tortionnaire de la Gestapo qui cherche à s’approprier les diamants et fuir en Amérique du Sud. Dès lors s’organise une captivante chasse à l’homme dans Paris, un duel entre le nazi et le prince par personne interposée, le traducteur Jean de Dieu.
Histoire d’immigration
Le Canada accueille chaque année des milliers d’émigrants en provenance des quatre coins du globe. Qu’ils aient quitté leur terre d’origine pour fuir l’oppression, la tyrannie ou la guerre, dans l’espoir d’améliorer une qualité de vie, ou simplement par amour, tous ont dû faire le choix déchirant de se déraciner.. Du désir d’émigrer à l’adaptation dans le pays d’accueil, en passant par la préparation au départ, les chocs culturels, les rencontres inoubliables, la quête identitaire et les procédures d’immigration, voici quelques thèmes abordés dans ce recueil qui regroupe quarante parcours uniques de personnes qui ont voulu raconter leur histoire.. Le concours d’écriture que les Éditions David lançaient en janvier 2021, « Histoires d’immigration », invitait les nouveaux arrivants, les personnes issues de l’immigration, de même que les gens de la communauté d’accueil, à partager leur expérience liée à l’immigration…
Hubert, Le Restavèk
«Le bateau quitte lentement le quai de Jérémie. J'ai le coeur qui débat, gros dans ma poitrine. Les larmes roulent sur mes joues. La taille de ma mère s'amenuise de plus en plus, pour ne plus devenir qu'un petit point à l'horizon. Je reste là à l'arrière du bateau fixant ce point jusqu'à ce qu'il disparaisse tout à fait de mon champ de vision. Je suis en route pour une nouvelle aventure dont je rêve depuis des mois, mais je suis tout de même angoissé devant l'inconnu. Après une nuit mouvementée en mer, je suis arrivé à Port-au-Prince en provenance de ma ville natale, une petite ville du sud. Le quai de débarquement, où je me trouve, si on peut l'appeler ainsi, est juste à côté du marché de charbon qui, sans le savoir, allait changer ma vie. L'histoire qui suit est la mienne et pourrait être celle de milliers de jeunes envoyés par leurs familles pour vivre avec un parent, qui un oncle, une tante, une marraine dans la capitale ou pour être placés comme dans mon cas dans une famille, comme garçon à tout faire ou comme on nous appelle ici : un restavèk (reste avec).» Il existerait en Haïti près de 400 000 restavèks. Ces enfants, victimes d'abus de toutes sortes, sont maintenus dans un état proche de l'esclavage. Haïtien émigré à Toronto, Gabriel Osson raconte ici l'histoire bouleversante de l'un d'eux.
Vox Humana
Vox Humana (Latin for “human voice”) is driven by a sense of political urgency to probe the ethics of agency in a world that actively resists the participation of some voices over others.
In and through literary experiments with word and sound, utterance and song, Vox Humana considers the different ways a body can assert, recount, proclaim, thus underscoring the urgency of doing so against the de-voicing effects of racism and institutional violence.
As the title also represents an organ reed that sounds like the human voice, so DeRango-Adem shares her reclaiming of the instrument traditionally accessed by the white establishment.
These poems are born from the polyphonic phenomenon of the author’s multilingual upbringing. They are autobiographical and alchemical, singular and plural, but, above all, a celebration of the (breath) work required for transformation of society and self.
Smells like stars
Winner of the 2018 Elliot Cades Award for Literature for an Established Writer
Journalist Kerstin Ostheim and freelance photographer P.J. Banner have been together six months after meeting on a dating website. As their wedding fast approaches, they question their compatibility while investigating a series of mysterious horse killings taking place in Ogweyo’s Cove, the Pacific tourist haven where they live.
In the meantime, Schuld Ostheim, Kerstin’s transgender daughter from her first marriage, is preparing for an art exhibit after being hospitalized for a physical assault while her boyfriend, Woloff, an Olympic medalist in the 1500m, comes to terms with a career-ending knee injury. As Kerstin and P.J. get closer to the truth about the dead horses, they also begin to more clearly see each other. Simultaneously, Schuld’s and Woloff’s pasts come back to haunt them, jeopardizing their sense of a possible future.
Ultimately, Smells Like Stars draws attention to what is hidden in plain sight, what cruelties life presents, and what struggles we face in our search for meaning.
Junie
A riveting exploration of the complexity within mother-daughter relationships and the dynamic vitality of Vancouver’s former Hogan’s Alley neighbourhood.
1930s, Hogan’s Alley—a thriving Black and immigrant community located in Vancouver’s East End. Junie is a creative, observant child who moves to the alley with her mother, Maddie: a jazz singer with a growing alcohol dependency. Junie quickly makes meaningful relationships with two mentors and a girl her own age, Estelle, whose resilient and entrepreneurial mother is grappling with white scrutiny and the fact that she never really wanted a child.
As Junie finds adulthood, exploring her artistic talents and burgeoning sexuality, her mother sinks further into the bottle while the thriving neighbourhood—once gushing with potential—begins to change. As her world opens, Junie intuits the opposite for the community she loves.
Told through the fascinating lens of a bright woman in an oft-disquieting world, this book is intimate and urgent—not just an unflinching look at the destruction of a vibrant community, but a celebration of the Black lives within.
Blank: Essays and Interviews by M. NourbeSe Philip
Recipient of the $50,000 2020 PEN/Nabokov Award for International Literature
Bla_K is a collection of previously out-of-print essays and new works by one of Canada’s most important contemporary writers and thinkers.Through an engagement with her earlier work, M. NourbeSe Philip comes to realize the existence of a repetition in the world: the return of something that, while still present, has become unembedded from the world, disappeared. Her imperative becomes to make us see what has gone unseen, by writing memory upon the margin of history, in the shadow of empire and at the frontier of silence.
In heretical writings that work to make the disappeared perceptible, Bla_K explores questions of race, the body politic, timeliness, recurrence, ongoingness, art, and the so-called multicultural nation. Through these considerations, Philip creates a linguistic form that registers the presence of what has seemingly dissolved, a form that also imprints the loss and the silence surrounding those disappearances in its very presence.
Dear Current Occupant
Chelene Knight Selected by David Chariandy for Writers’ Trust of Canada’s Rising Star Program
Dear Current Occupant is a creative nonfiction memoir about home and belonging set in the 80s and 90s of Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Using a variety of forms including letters, essays and poems, Knight reflects on her childhood through a series of letters addressed to all of the current occupants now living in the twenty different houses she moved in and out of with her mother and brother. From blurry and fragmented non-chronological memories of trying to fit in with her own family as the only mixed East Indian/Black child, to crystal clear recollections of parental drug use, Knight draws a vivid portrait of memory that still longs for a place and a home.
Peering through windows and doors into intimate, remembered spaces now occupied by strangers, Knight writes to them in order to deconstruct her own past. From the rubble of memory she then builds a real place in order to bring herself back home.
