November 2025. PRE-ORDER NOW

The Before Columbus Foundation, founded in 1976 by Ishmael Reed and others, remains “dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of contemporary American multicultural literature.” It operates on the premise that storytelling traditions existed thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans, which counters the myth that storytelling begins with the Puritan settlement. The foundation established the American Book Awards in 1978, which has recognized hundreds of writers who otherwise would have been ignored. Its board of directors includes three MacArthur Fellows, three former U.S. Poet Laureates, three Pulitzer Prize winners, a winner of the Booker Prize, and a recipient of a Presidential medal.

BLIND PERSISTENCE is the Before Columbus story as told by a host of leading American poets, novelists, public intellectuals. Contributors include Wajahat Ali, Carolyn Forché, Joy Harjo, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Nancy Mercado, Margaret Porter Troupe, Shawn Wong and more.

Edited by Ishmael Reed and Justin Desmangles (with Carla Blank and Tennessee Reed)

Ishmael Reed has authored fifty works of fiction, poetry, non-fiction, plays and librettos, and edited numerous anthologies. He has received prizes in every category. The fourth novel in his “Terribles” series, The Terrible Fives, is forthcoming from Baraka Books in 2026. Other recent works include Why the Black Hole Sings the Blues (2022), and The Shine Challenge 2025, premiered at NYC’s Theater for the New City on January 30, 2025. Reed is also a cartoonist, songwriter, musician and composer, public media commentator and publisher. Books published by Baraka Books include Bigotry on Broadway (with Carla Blank), The Complete Muhammad Ali, The Terrible Fours, and Why No Confederate Statues in Mexico. He lives in Oakland.

Justin Desmangles is chairman of the Before Columbus Foundation, administrator of the American Book Awards, and creator of the radio broadcast New Day Jazz. A member of the board of directors of the Oakland Book Festival, Mr. Desmangles is also a program producer at the African-American Center of the San Francisco Public Library. His poetry and journalism has appeared in Amerarcana, Black Renaissance Noire, Drumvoices Revue, Konch, and Musiqology.

OCTOBER 1 2025. PRE-ORDER NOW

With a Foreword by Oliver Stone.

In December 2024, Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad departed for Russia after militia forces took Damascus. An Al-Qaeda affiliated group led by Abu Mohammed Al-Jolani (aka Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa) took power. New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman hooted that it was the “biggest…most game-changing event in the Middle East in the last 45 years.” Yet until then, Al-Jolani was wanted for terrorism and had a U.S. State Department $10 million bounty on his head since 2017.

The media-established story of popular “rebels” triumphing over “evil” has since dominated.  Washington’s role in this long-standing regime change operation was erased.

This is the first comprehensive account of the U.S. regime change operation in Syria dating back decades. The goal was to end Syria’s nationalist economic program, its support for the Palestinians, and its steadfast opposition to U.S. and Israeli hegemonic designs in Western Asia.

The methods utilized fit a long-standing U.S. regime-change playbook applied worldwide. Key aspects include a protracted demonization campaign, imposition of crippling economic sanctions, and CIA financing of rebel groups under the billion-dollar Operation Timber-Sycamore.

Jeremy Kuzmarov holds a Ph.D. in American history from Brandeis University. He did his BA and MA at McGill University in Montreal, where he was born. He has taught at numerous colleges in the United States and is regularly sought out as an expert on U.S. history and politics for radio and TV programs. Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine, Kuzmarov is author of five books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (2019) and Warmonger (2024). In addition, he has contributed to many edited volumes, including The Oxford Handbook of Late Colonial Insurgencies and Counter-Insurgencies. Kuzmarov lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Dan Kovalik has been a labor and human rights lawyer since graduating from Columbia Law School in 1993.  He served as in-house counsel for the United Steelworkers for twenty-six years. He has represented plaintiffs in human rights cases arising out of egregious abuses in Colombia. He also taught International Human Rights at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law from 2012 to 2023. Author of many books, including The Case for Palestine: Why It Matters and Why You Should Care, he received the David W. Mills Mentoring Fellowship from Stanford Law School, the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism, and Iran’s 15th Farabi International Award. Dan Kovalik lives in Pittsburgh.

Oliver Stone is an Oscar-winning Filmmaker as (Platoon, Born on the Fourth of July) and is the author of several books including the highly acclaimed memoir Chasing the Light.

Praise for the authors’ previous books.

About Kuzmarov’s Obama’s Unending Wars

“A devastatingly clinical analysis  “―Max Blumenthal

“extraordinary book”―Peter Kuznick

About Warmonger (on Clinton’s foreign policy)

“Who first set us on this disastrous road of endless war and imperial overreach? Kuzmarov brilliantly answers these questions in his stunning new book.”―James Bradley

About Kovalik’s The Case for Palestine

“New leaders like Dan Kovalik are now among us. New books like his are our weapons.” George Galloway

OCT 1, 2025. PRE-ORDER NOW.

The history of the Montreal Canadiens is about more than just hockey. It’s also the story of how hockey’s most winning team has always skated hand-in-hand with its home province of Quebec.

Brendan Kelly takes a fresh look at the ups and downs of the Habs since the heyday of the “Flying Frenchmen” in the 50s, 60s and 70s and shows how the history of the team mirrors the tumultuous changes in Quebec over the past decades. Why was it that from 1955, year of the “Rocket Richard Riot,” until 1995, year of Quebec’s second referendum, the Canadiens won 17 Stanley Cups?

Kelly talks with former Canadiens greats like Serge Savard and Bob Gainey, journalists, politicians, filmmakers and even Lord of the Rings star Viggo Mortensen, maybe the Canadiens’ most famous fan—telling the tale of the team’s unique bond with its fans. One surprising conclusion is that when the team’s roster was at its most Québécois, the team had its greatest success on the ice. Since Montreal’s last Quebec superstar, Patrick Roy, was unceremoniously booted out of town, the franchise has failed to win a Stanley Cup and has rarely been amongst the NHL’s elite squads.

In one chapter entitled “Trumping the Two Solitudes,” Kelly also shows how the Canadiens have had the power to bridge the linguistic divide in Montreal.

Credit, François Couture

Brendan Kelly, born in Glasgow, raised in Montreal and a fan of the Canadiens for longer than he can remember, was one of the founders of the late great alternative weekly the Montreal Mirror. He worked at the Montreal Daily News in the late 80s and had a weekly music column on CBC Radio for over 30 years. His Montreal Gazette column “What the Puck” is a controversial contrarian hot take on the Canadiens that elicits much hate and even more love. He has written for the Gazette since 1996. He also contributes frequently to various Radio-Canada cultural shows.

Marie-Philip Poulin is a three-time Olympian who holds the unique distinction of scoring the Olympic gold-medal-winning goals for Canada at  the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, the 2014 Olympics in Sochi and the 2022 Olympics in Beijing. She was also captain of the team that won silver at the 2018 Games in PyeongChang. The recipient of numerous honours and awards, Poulin is considered one of the world’s top players. Marie-Philip Poulin lives in Montreal and is Captain of the Montréal Victoire. She recently won the 2025 PWHL Most Valuable Player Award.

Reviews and Praise

“In Habs Nation, a charming historical-sports investigation, Brendan Kelly, journalist at The Gazette, suggests that the more Quebecois the CH is, the more likely it is to win the Stanley Cup.” Le Devoir

“I don’t know much about hockey. But I devoured Brendan Kelly’s book.” Sophie Durocher, Le journal de Montréal

JUNE 15, 2025.

It is 1944 and Red Army soldiers have liberated the Polish town of Dobryd from Nazi occupation. After three years of hiding, a family are helped down from a hayloft and given bread. One of the soldiers picks up a four-year-old child and carries her outside. She looks around in wonder and feels, for the first time in her life, the fresh air of summer on her cheeks.

So begins a young girl’s new life amid the ruins of World War II. While adults mourn what was lost forever, the narrator explores a world that had been forbidden to her, discovering the pleasures of the senses and the company of other children. Though resolutely thriving in the present and thrilled about what’s ahead, the young child also pieces together the past that the adults are determined to bury.

In this powerful autobiographical novel about momentous events, Montreal writer Ann Charney tells an illuminating story of ordinary people committing appalling crimes and surviving unfathomable despair. Written with fierce candour and insight, it is a compelling story of the human spirit.

Ann Charney is an award-winning Canadian novelist, short story writer, and journalist. Dobryd was first published in 1973 and was translated into many languages. Her work has been published in Canada, the U.S., France, Germany, and Italy. Ann Charney’s other books include Life Class, Rousseau’s Garden, Distantly Related to Freud and Defiance in Their Eyes. She has won Canadian National Magazine Awards both for her fiction and non-fiction and was made an officer of the Ordre des arts et lettres in France. Ann Charney lives in Montreal.

Peter McFarlane is an author, journalist, editor, and arts administrator. His most recent book, which was inspired by Dobryd, is Family Ties, How a Ukrainian Nazi and a Living Witness link Canada to Ukraine today. Author of numerous articles, he is also the editor of several award-winning titles including Unsettling Canada. He lives north of Montreal.

Reviews and Praise

Cited among “The Best of Summer Books” by The Globe and Mail.
“Dobryd, Ann Charney (Baraka Books, June) When it was first published in 1973, Charney’s autobiographical novel about her and her mother’s escape from Nazi-occupied Poland was compared to The Diary of Anne Frank for its powerful exploration of the effects of war. But the book was better received overseas than in Charney’s adopted Canada – one of its heroes being a Red Army soldier proved a complicating factor – and it eventually fell out of print until this revival by a Quebec publisher. 

“Brave, but scary, new world: Ann Charney’s riveting girlhood memoir of life in post World War II-Poland.” Melanie Jackson, The Seaboard Review

“Along with The Diary of Anne Frank . . . Dobryd will take its place as one of the truly significant insights into the effects of war.” Books in Canada

“A tale told with great skill and simplicity; her book is a tour de force.” Maclean’s

“A ‘marvelous’ autobiographical novel of a Jewish girl emerging from hiding in Poland after the defeat of the Nazis, and rediscovering freedom and hope.” Publishers Weekly

“One of the best books on a European destiny in our century.” Stuttgarter Zeitung, Germany

“Original and compelling, this book makes us believe in the possibility of happiness amid the terrors of war.” Frankfurter Neue Presse, Germany

“A terrifying and inspiring story of war seen through the eyes of a child.” L’express, Belgium

“An extraordinary testimonial to the strength of the human spirit, even in the worst times.” Flair, Belgium

“The novel’s unsentimental, clear-eyed vision offers hope that, with luck, the human spirit can blossom under the most dreadful circumstances.” Mary Soderstrom

MARCH 2025

Malory Fleet’s son was killed by bikers and now she’s worried about his missing girlfriend, Amanda. But that case was closed shut by the police a year ago and Frank Cain, the private investigator she’s hired, is reluctant to take it on. On the sometimes seedy streets of uptown Saint John, no one wants to talk, even fewer have anything to say, and the police have cast a blanket of fog over everything. As Frank searches fruitlessly for clues, he learns more about Malory than about Amanda, and begins to grow wary. Throughout, Detective Stuart Boucher is following Frank and making little effort to hide it, leading Cain to conclude that the officer may have more to do with the case than he’s letting on. For Frank Cain, as unmoored as a lost ship in the harbour, in unravelling this case he risks unravelling himself.

Saints Rest is a neo-noir novel set in a gritty and unforgiving Saint John, a town where few people are prepared for its secrets, least of all Frank Cain.

Luke Francis Beirne was born in Donegal, Ireland, and lives on the Wolastoqey land of Saint John, New Brunswick. His first novel, Foxhunt (Baraka Books, 2022), was a finalist for the 2022 Foreword INDIES award and selected as one of The Miramichi Reader’s Very Best novels of 2022. His second novel, Blacklion (Baraka Books, 2023), was selected by CBC as one of the novels to read in 2023 and shortlisted by the Writer’s Federation of New Brunswick for the 2023 Best Novel Award. His stories, essays, and reviews have appeared in Counterpunch, NB Media Co-op, Hamilton Arts & Letters, and CrimeReads. Beirne’s work has been stylistically compared to Ernest Hemingway, Graham Greene, Frederick Forsyth, and John le Carre. Saints Rest is his third novel.

REVIEWS & PRAISE

“Saints Rest is utterly essential and at this early stage already a contender for one of the best of the year.” James Mullinger, Maritime [Edit]

“Saints Rest showcases Beirne’s ease with the textures of misery. There’s no mistaking its contemporary grittiness.” Brett Josef Grubisic, The Miramichi Reader

“Saints Rest by Luke Francis Beirne is set in a dreary Saint John, New Brunswick and centers around Frank Cain, a private investigator. Think Dashiel Hammett’s Sam Spade or the Continental Op, and you’re on the right track for a great read. . . . Snappy dialogue and realistic characters make Saints Rest such an enjoyable book.” James Fisher, The Seaboard Review

“Beirne captures the hard-boiled spirit of Saint John—the dense fog, the salty air of the harbour, the cold-in-the-bones daily life of the working class. A fine example of East Coast Grit Lit.” Jerrod Edson, novelist

About Blacklion 

“Mr. Beirne’s writing is good, really good…I used to read a lot of Frederick Forsyth, and Blacklion very much recalls the type of story Mr. Forsyth would spin. Recommended, along with Foxhunt.” James Fisher, The Seaboard Review

“Highly atmospheric… very cinematic…” Colleen Kitts-Goguen, CBC

“Beirne achieves a certain Hemingway quality for his protagonist and associates… a fine effort in a genre where the bar has been set extremely high by le Carre, Greene, Deighton, and others.” Ian Thomas Shaw, The Ottawa Review of Books

About Foxhunt

“[Foxhunt is] a cold-war thriller rather like early le Carré. … eerily pertinent given recent news …” Simon Lavery, Tredynas Days

“[A] brilliant young writer.” David Adams Richards

“With its beautifully lyrical prose, Foxhunt is an alchemic mix of realpolitik and shadowy noir.” Mark Anthony Jarman

“Against a seamless historical and literary backdrop, Foxhunt balances compelling intrigue with vulnerable human emotions.” Meg Nola, Foreword Reviews (March-April 2022)