A Small Press Finds Success by Refusing to Ignore the World – Repeating Islands


[Many thanks to Peter Jordens for bringing this item to our attention.] Amanda Perry (The Walrus) writes about Rodney Saint-Éloi’s publishing home Mémoire d’encrier, explaining “how taking dangers has helped [this] Quebec writer stand out towards the pervasive whiteness of the trade.”

When Haitian president Jovenel Moïse was assassinated final summer season, Dany Laferrière, maybe probably the most well-known dwelling author from the island nation, appeared exasperated by media requests for remark. “I had the impression,” he wrote in an article revealed within the Le Journal de Montréal, “that individuals anticipated me to substantiate the president’s demise from the foot of my mattress in Montreal.” As an alternative, he pointed to Les villages de Dieu. The novel, revealed in 2020, depicts a gang-ridden slum the police can not enter; for Laferrière, it humanizes Haiti’s poor whereas demonstrating the disintegration of state energy that enabled the assassination. And, in contrast to him, its writer, Emmelie Prophète, relies in Port-au-Prince.

The media bit. Out of the blue Prophète was being interviewed by main retailers throughout Quebec, leaving her Montreal writer, Mémoire d’encrier, scrambling to print 10,000 copies of Les villages de Dieu in lower than a month. In keeping with Prophète—all quotes on this story translated from the unique French—the flip of occasions modified “the future of the ebook.” She had 5 earlier novels and several other prizes and nominations to her title, however Les villages de Dieu’s success in Canada and Europe introduced her a brand new stage of fame. Prophète singled out the “danger takers” at Mémoire d’encrier, based by Haitian poet Rodney Saint-Éloi, for his or her long-term dedication to her work. “It does such good to have presses like that.”

Lively since 2003, Mémoire d’encrier churns out almost two dozen books a yr from its workplace on the border of Rosemont and Villeray. Releases embody Quebec-based writers alongside writers from Haiti, Africa, and France, with a sturdy collection of translations of authors like Giller Prize winner Souvankham Thammavongsa and acclaimed American novelist and poet Ocean Vuong. What’s extra, the press has arguably turn into the main French-language promoter of Indigenous literature. Its catalogue options Innu writers Naomi Fontaine and Joséphine Bacon in addition to translations of Thomas King, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson, Tomson Freeway, and the late Lee Maracle. With common nominations for Quebec’s prime prizes and distribution networks in Canada, Haiti, and components of French-speaking Europe, Mémoire d’encrier is now a significant drive in francophone letters. Its employees consists of six full-time workers, three of whom are folks of color, together with the director.

Mémoire d’encrier’s success stands out towards each Quebec’s fame for cultural homogeneity and the pervasive whiteness of the publishing trade. Quebec’s media sector, its largest arts council, and its broader cultural scene have all confronted criticism lately for his or her lack of range. Premier François Legault’s refusal to acknowledge systemic racism has turn into a continuous supply of controversy. In the meantime, inside publishing, the issue seems extra normal. After the 2020 social media marketing campaign #PublishingPaidMe denounced the small advances paid to Black writers, a New York Occasions report revealed that solely 11 p.c of books launched by main American presses in 2018 had been by folks of color. That quantity correlated with the dominance of white editors. A 2018 range research by the Affiliation of Canadian Publishers discovered that, of the 372 publishing professionals who responded, 82 p.c recognized as white.

However what occurs when a press does greater than enhance its roster of writers of color? What occurs when range is constructed into its very construction? Mémoire d’encrier means that the outcomes will be transformative.

{That a} Haitian man runs a press in Montreal shouldn’t be stunning: the town has been a hub for literature from the Caribbean nation for over fifty years because of linguistic affinities and waves of immigration. However Saint-Éloi’s challenge is distinctive for its longevity, its attain, and the breadth of its mandate. Slightly than hope for inclusion by Quebec’s previous cultural guard, he units his personal phrases. “Me, I take all the pieces that’s thought of peripheral and I place it within the centre,” Saint-Éloi declares, without delay soft-spoken and energetic. “I believe the revolution in books is that we are able to not proceed to disregard the world.”

His mission has been to disrupt what he sees as pervasive apathy in Quebec’s publishing scene. “It was as if we had been settling. We had been glad with being a province.” He remembers studying Hugh MacLennan’s Two Solitudes, concerning the division between francophones and anglophones inside Canada, and being alarmed by the narrowness of the body. “The place are the Black folks in these two solitudes? The place are the Indigenous folks? The place are the Arab folks?”

Nonetheless, Saint-Éloi rejects the label of “Black writer” as condescending and inaccurate. Early on, Mémoire d’encrier’s catalogue highlighted writers from Haiti and the diaspora, that includes a combination of latest work, anthologies, and classics. However Saint-Éloi is fast to level out that he included Moroccan and Tunisian authors in his first yr. He additionally publishes white authors from Quebec and France who share his considerations with cross-cultural dialogue and decolonization. In 2009, the press expanded into translations, and eight of the twenty-five titles from the 2021 season come from different languages. And, since securing a devoted European distributor in 2020, its attain has turn into world. [. . .]

SAINT-ÉLOI WAS already established in Haiti’s cultural sector earlier than transferring to Quebec. In 1991, when he was not but thirty, he launched a press in Port-au-Prince known as Mémoire, with the objective of selling a brand new technology of Haitian poets. He additionally ran a cultural web page for the nation’s oldest day by day newspaper, Le Nouvelliste, and based a ebook competition. Finally, although, the nation’s sociopolitical local weather wore him down, and he selected to to migrate.

Canada made sense as he had accomplished a grasp’s diploma in literature at Laval College. However, when he made a everlasting transfer in 2001, he discovered life as a member of a racial minority more durable than anticipated. Shocked on the harassment of Black males by the Montreal police, he prevented taking the metro for months. [. . .]

However Saint-Éloi was additionally a part of one other custom. Haitian intellectuals started migrating to Montreal within the Nineteen Sixties, through the dictatorship of François Duvalier, and plenty of continued their work in exile. They based journals, political teams, and cultural centres, and actively participated in Quebec’s Quiet Revolution. Saint-Éloi’s first actions in Montreal had been firmly anchored inside this diasporic group. He started collaborating with Le Centre Worldwide de Documentation et d’Data Haïtienne, Caribéenne, et Afro-Canadienne (CIDIHCA), a centre established in 1983 partially to safeguard Haiti’s cultural heritage. The group features a library, an archive, and a publishing unit. For Saint-Éloi, nonetheless, working with CIDIHCA felt too near house, as if he had not truly left Haiti. Founding Mémoire d’encrier was a method of embracing his adopted house.

From the start, his method was formidable. He launched the press at Montreal’s marquee ebook truthful Salon du livre de Montréal, the place he can be most probably to obtain media consideration. Saint-Éloi was provided a free spot within the venue’s basement, however he refused, sure that beginning there would affirm his standing on the margins. As an alternative, he requested for a stand in a chief location with a $20,000 price ticket—and argued he ought to get it for half worth. “I stated, I’ll deliver folks right here that you’ve got by no means had, folks from in all places, Black folks, Arab folks. I offers you an viewers.” [. . .] Saint-Éloi promised an viewers, and one confirmed up. [. . .]

[Shown above: Rodney Saint-Éloi and Yara El-Ghadban at Mémoire d’encrier in Montreal, in October 2021, flipping through their co-authored book, Les racistes n’ont jamais vu la mer. Photo by Andrej Ivanov.]

For full article, see https://thewalrus.ca/a-small-press-finds-success-by-refusing-to-ignore-the-world



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