(16 April 2024) – Baraka Books has just learned with extreme sadness that Blossom Thom, Fiction Editor at Baraka Books, passed away this morning after a short but courageous fight against a very aggressive form of cancer. She will be sorely missed.
Our most sincere condolences go out to her family and many friends. We will be communicating more news and a homage in coming days
Robin Philpot, Publisher
The Italian Cultural Institute and Baraka Books are pleased to invite you to the launch of
BUT WE BUILT ROADS FOR THEM
The Lies, Racism and Amnesia that Bury Italy’s Colonial Past
by
FRANCESCO FILIPPI
translation of:
Noi Però Gli Abbiamo Fatto Le Strade
Le colonie italiane tra bugie, razzismi e amnesie
Translated by Domenic Cusmano
A discussion about Italy’s colonial history.
Tuesday, March 19, 6:30 p.m.
Istituto Italiano di Cultura
1200, av. Dr. Penfield, Montréal
R.S.V.P.
Author Francesco Filippi will be present at the Institute and will be speaking to the public in Italian with consecutive interpretation in French. The discussion will be moderated by Dario Brancato, Professor of Italian Language, Literature and Culture and Concordia. Translator Domenic Cusmano and Publisher Robin Philpot will also take part.
____________________
L’Institut Culturel Italien et Baraka Books ont le plaisir de vous inviter au lancement du livre
BUT WE BUILT ROADS FOR THEM
The Lies, Racism and Amnesia that Bury Italy’s Colonial Past
de
FRANCESCO FILIPPI
traduction de:
Noi Però Gli Abbiamo Fatto Le Strade
Le colonie italiane tra bugie, razzismi e amnesie
Traduit par Domenic Cusmano
Une discussion sur le passé colonial italien.
L’auteur, Francesco Filippi, sera présent à l’Institut pour une rencontre avec le public en langue italienne, avec traduction consécutive en français. L’entretien sera animé par Dario Brancato, professeur de langue, littérature et culture italiennes à l’Université Concordia, avec le traducteur du livre, Domenic Cusmano et de l’éditeur Robin Philpot.
Mardi, le 19 mars, 18h30
Istituto Italiano di Cultura
1200, av. Dr. Penfield, Montréal
(Montreal, 26 February 2024.) Robin Philpot, publisher of Baraka Books, is very pleased to announce the appointment of Melissa Bull to the position of Fiction Editor of QC Fiction, an imprint of Baraka Books. Melissa will be taking over from Peter McCambridge, who founded QC Fiction in 2015 and headed it until January 2024.
In this position, Melissa’s responsibilities will include curating the publishing of fiction at QC Fiction from choice of books, through editing, proofreading, production, and post-publishing follow-up.
Melissa Bull has just finished translating the award-winning novel Morel (Cheval d’août, 2021) by Maxime Raymond Bock, to be published by QC Fiction in June 2024.
Melissa joins the Baraka team that includes Blossom Thom, Fiction Editor of Baraka Books, Josée Lalancette, Production Manager, and Hélène Couture, Accountant, and Robin Philpot, Publisher.
Baraka Books would like to thank Peter McCambridge for creating QC Fiction and for curating it for seven years and making it into the award-winning imprint it is. We wish him all the best in is future endeavours.
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Melissa Bull is a Montreal writer, poet, editor, and translator. Author of a collection of fiction, The Knockoff Eclipse, a collection of poetry, Rue, she has also translated Marie-Sissi Labrèche’s novel, Borderline, Pascale Rafie’s play, The Baklawa Recipe, and Nelly Arcan’s collection, Burqa of Skin. She was the editor and translator of Maisonneuve magazine’s “Writing from Quebec” column for a decade, and her fiction, essays, and interviews have been widely published. Her most recent translation is Morel by Maxime Raymond Bock. Melissa lives in Montreal.
QC Fiction, an imprint of Baraka Books founded by Peter McCambridge in 2015, brings the very best of a new generation of Quebec storytellers in flawless English translation.
Baraka Books, a Quebec-based English-language book publisher, is celebrating its 15th anniversary. Specializing in creative and political non-fiction, history, fiction and historical fiction, and, we believe that books are a haven of freedom and remain the foremost vector for change. Baraka can mean blessing, wisdom, luck, and more. Inspired by this multilingual and cross-cultural word, Baraka Books is committed to providing English-speaking readers in Canada and worldwide with ideas, points of view, and creative works that might otherwise be overlooked because of cultural or linguistic barriers.
– 30 –
Source : Robin Philpot 514-808-8504
Melissa Bull nommée directrice littéraire de QC Fiction
(Montréal, le 26 février 2024.) Robin Philpot, éditeur de Livres Baraka Inc., a le plaisir d’annoncer la nomination de Melissa Bull au poste de directrice littéraire de QC Fiction, une collection de Baraka Books. Melissa prend ainsi le relais de Peter McCambridge, qui a fondé la collection en 2015 et l’a dirigée depuis.
À ce titre, parmi ses responsabilités figurent le choix des œuvres à publier, le travail d’édition, de correction, et le suivi de la production jusqu’à la publication et la promotion.
Melissa Bull vient de terminer la traduction de Morel (Cheval d’août, 2021) de Maxime Raymond Bock, un roman qui a mérité de nombreux prix et distinctions. Morel paraîtra chez QC Fiction en juin 2024.
Melissa se joint à l’équipe de Baraka, qui comprend notamment Robin Philpot, éditeur, Blossom Thom, éditrice de fiction, Josée Lalancette, directrice de production, Hélène Couture, comptable, et.
Livres Baraka tient à remercier chaleureusement Peter McCambridge d’avoir créé la collection QC Fiction et de l’avoir dirigée durant ces sept années où elle a gagné en reconnaissance grâce aux nombreux prix et distinctions que ses livres ont reçues. Nous lui souhaitons bonne chance dans ses nouveaux projets.
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Melissa Bull est une écrivaine, poète, éditrice et traductrice montréalaise. Auteure d’un recueil de fictions, The Knockoff Eclipse (Éclipse électrique) et d’un recueil de poésie, Rue, elle a également traduit le roman Borderline de Marie-Sissi Labrèche, la pièce de théâtre La recette de baklawas de Pascale Rafie, ainsi que le recueil Burqa de chair de Nelly Arcan. Elle a été rédactrice et traductrice de la rubrique « Writing from Quebec » du magazine Maisonneuve pendant dix ans, et ses fictions, essais et entrevues ont été diffusés dans de nombreuses publications. Sa plus récente traduction est le roman Morel de Maxime Raymond Bock. Melissa vit à Montréal.
QC Fiction, une collection de Livres Baraka fondée en 2015 par Peter McCambridge, publie les meilleures œuvres d’une nouvelle génération d’écrivaines et d’écrivains du Québec dans des traductions impeccables.
Les livres Baraka, une maison d’édition québécoise qui publie des livres en anglais, célèbre cette année son 15e anniversaire. Publiant des essais politiques et littéraires, des fictions historiques et contemporaines, nous croyons que le livre est un havre de liberté et demeure le plus important vecteur du changement. Baraka signifie, selon la langue, la bénédiction, la sagesse ou la chance. Inspirés par ce mot qui traverse langues et cultures, nous nous engageons à offrir aux lecteurs et aux lectrices de langue anglaise au Canada et partout des idées, des points de vue et des œuvres de création qui, autrement, pourraient passer inaperçues en raison de barrières linguistiques et culturelles.
– 30 –
Source : Robin Philpot 514-808-8504
Baraka Books acknowledges the support of the Société de développement des entreprises culturelles du Québec (SODEC), the Government of Quebec Tax Credits program, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.
Livres Baraka remercie pour leur soutien la Société de développement des entreprises culturelles du Québec (SODEC), le Gouvernement du Québec pour le programme de crédits d’impôt et le Gouvernement du Canada par le biais du Fonds du livre du Canada.
(9 Nov. 2023)
We invite publishers, and those who work in publishing industries around the world, who stand for justice, freedom of expression, and the power of the written word, to sign this letter and join our global solidarity collective, Publishers for Palestine.
We honour the courage, creativity, and resistance of Palestinians, their profound love of their historic lands, and their refusal to be erased, or grow silent, despite Israel’s horrific genocidal acts of violence. Against the chilling complicity of Western media and cultural industries, we find hope sparked by the surge of bodies and voices that continue to gather, write, speak, sing, combat falsehoods, and build community and solidarity across social media and on our streets, across the world.
Over the past month, we have witnessed Israel’s incessant bombardment of Gaza as a form of collective punishment, using banned phosphorous bombs and unusual new weapons, with the support of governments in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, Germany, Europe, and Australia. We have watched 1.1 million Palestinians flee their homes in the north, only to experience the brutal destruction of hospitals and spaces of shelter in schools, refugee camps, churches, and mosques in the south of Gaza. We are currently witnessing 2.3 million people, of whom 50% are children, being cruelly denied basic necessities of shelter, food, water, fuel, and electricity as Israel launches a ground invasion. Over 9,000 Palestinians have been killed thus far, along with entire generations of families that fled to Gaza during the Nakba of 1948. And with unbearable grief, we have watched Israel’s horrific killing of over 3,500 children. As Raz Segal, a Jewish scholar of Holocaust and genocide states: “Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza is quite explicit, open, and unashamed.”
Israel and Western powers are making a concerted attempt to extinguish dissent and maintain their faltering control. Across the publishing and media landscape since October 7th, 2023, the reprisals for speaking out have already been severe and extensive. We decry the killing of dozens of journalists in Gaza, including Mohamed Fayez Abu Matar, Saeed al-Taweel, Mohammed Sobh, Hisham Alnwajha, Mohammad Al-Salhi, Mohammad Jarghoun, Ahmed Shehab, Husam Mubarak, Mohammad Balousha, Issam Bhar, Salam Mema, Assaad Shamlakh, Ibrahim Mohammad Lafi, Khalil Abu Aathra, Sameeh Al-Nady, Abdulhadi Habib, Yousef Maher Dawas, and Roshdi Sarraj.
As cultural workers who pay careful attention to words and language, we note that this genocide was inaugurated with Israeli occupation military leaders using words such as “human animal” to justify their attacks on the civilians of Gaza. It is shocking to observe the use of such dehumanizing language from a people who have themselves experienced the same in the context of genocide. We are also reminded of the language of erasure and genocide embedded in the Zionist (and Christian) mythology of “A land without a people for a people without a land,” enacted by colonial Britain’s Balfour Declaration 106 years ago on November 2, 1917.
These histories of white supremacist, colonial, and capitalist systems of erasure, extraction, and control are reflected in the current moment, even within the rarefied worlds of arts and culture. From the Frankfurt Book Fair/Litprom’s refusal to honour the award given to Palestinian author Adania Shibli (a letter of protest against this was signed by over 1,000 well-known writers), to the cancellation of author readings such Viet Thanh Nguyen at New York’s 92Y, and Mohammed el-Kurd at the University of Vermont, and the recent firing of David Velasco, the editor of Artforum magazine, Western literary and publishing organizations have revealed their deep imbrication in U.S. and Israeli political and economic interests by silencing and punishing writers who speak out for Palestine.
We condemn the complicity of all those working within corporate and independent publishing who enable or condone such repression through their cowardice, silence, and cooperation with the demands of Israeli occupation and imperialist donors, funders, and governments. We condemn the policing and censorship of writers, the bullying and harassment of bookstore owners and staff, and the intimidation of publishing workers who are in solidarity with Palestinians. Publishing, for us, is the exercise of freedom, cultural expression, and resistance. As publishers we are dedicated to creating spaces for creative and critical Palestinian voices and for all who stand in solidarity against imperialism, Zionism, and settler-colonialism. We defend our right to publish, edit, distribute, share, and debate works that call for Palestinian liberation without recrimination. We know that this is our role in the resistance.
The silencing of Palestinian authors and writers only reinforces a fear of Palestinian literary resistance and contributes to the genocide of Palestinians and land theft. The same fear that is behind the bombs, the demolitions, the abductions, and the torture of Palestinian prisoners, is the fear that holds the Palestinian archives in Israeli control. As the writer Ghassan Kanafani said, “the Palestinian cause is not a cause for Palestinians only, but a cause for every revolutionary.” He reminds us that none of us are free until all of us are free.
Now is the time to stand with Palestinians and step into a new era of anti-colonial resistance– an era that refuses the Oslo concessions and the normalization of ties with the Zionist state. Now is the time to remember and uphold other historical victories against settler-colonial regimes, such as the resistance that rid Algeria of its French colonizers. Now is the time to intensify our support for Palestinian liberation from Israel and its U.S. and European backers. Now is the time to build solidarity amongst us to collectively refuse intimidation, repression, fear, and violence.
We call on our comrades, friends, and colleagues across various publishing industries to sign this letter and support the following demands:
(If you work in the publishing industry and would like to add your name to this statement, please fill out this form.)
First published on the Verso Books website.
Signed:
AK Press, US & UK
Apostroph, Catalunya, Spain
ArabLit Quarterly and ArabLit Books, Morocco
ARP Books, Canada
Arsenal Pulp Press, Canada
Baraka Books, Québec, Canada
Between the Lines, Canada
Beyond the Pale Books, Ireland
Charles H. Kerr Publishing, US
Common Notions Press, US
Daraja Press, Canada
Écosociété, Québec, Canada & France
Editions du remue-menage, Québec, Canada
En Toutes Lettres, Morocco
Essay Press, US
Fernwood Publishing, Canada
Hajar Press, UK
Haymarket Books, US & UK
Interlink Publishing, US
Interventions, Australia
Invisible Publishing, Canada
Left Book Club, UK
LeftWord Books, India
Lux Éditeur, Québec & France
Manifest Llibres, Catalunya, Spain
Marjin Kiri, Indonesia
Mémoire d’encrier, Québec, Canada
Microcosm Publishing, US
OR Books, US
Pasado y Presente, Catalunya, Spain
Pluto Press, UK & US
Pluto Journals, Ltd., UK
PM Press, US & UK
Radical Books Collective, US
Roam Agency, US
Saqi Books, UK
Setu Prakashani, India
Stree Samya, India
Tilted Axis, UK
trace press, Canada
Tulika Books, India
Upping the Anti, Canada
Verso Books, US and UK
Verso Libros, Catalunya, Spain
Women Unlimited, India
AK Press, US & UK
Zand Press, Nairobi
Sin Permiso, Spain
Wasafiri Magazine, UK
(Montréal, 7 septembre, 2023) – Baraka Books will launch After All Was Lost, The Resilience of a Rwandan Family Orphaned on April 6, 1994 when the Rwandan President’s Plane was Shot Down by Alice Nsabimana on Saturday, September 16, from 1:30 pm to 4:30 pm at the Centre Saint-Pierre, 1212, rue Panet (métro Beaudry), Montreal. Both the author and the translator, Maurice Nsabimana, will be in attendance. Everybody is welcome.
First published in French under the title Résilience, After All Was Lost is an outstretched hand bearing a message of love, peace, forgiveness, and resilience for victims of war or other disasters in the world. The highlights and life lessons that Alice Nsabimana and her brothers and sisters have chosen to share cast new light on the terrible tragedy that struck Rwanda – and the world.
Please register by Rsvp at info@barakabooks.com. For those who cannot attend, the launch will be live streamed. You can request the link at also at info@barakabooks.com.
Livres Baraka inc. lancera After All Was Lost, The Resilience of a Rwandan Family Orphaned on April 6, 1994 when the Rwandan President’s Plane was Shot Down d’Alice Nsabimana le samedi 16 septembre de 13 h 30 à 16 h 30 au Centre Saint-Pierre, 1212, rue Panet (métro Beaudry), à Montréal. L’auteure and le traducteur, Maurice Nsabimana seront présents. Tout le monde est le bienvenu.
Paru d’abord en Belgique sous le titre Résilience, le livre est une main tendue portant un message d’amour, de paix de pardon et de résilience pour les victimes de guerres ou autres catastrophes dans le monde. Les événements et leçons que Alice Nsabimana et ses frères et sœurs partagent jettent un nouvel éclairage sur la tragédie qui a frappé le Rwanda – et le monde.
On vous invite à vous inscrire par Rsvp à info@barakabooks.com. Pour ceux et celles qui ne peuvent y assister, le lancement sera diffusée en direct sur Zoom. Vous pouvez obtenir le lien en le demandant à info@barakabooks.com.
Source: Baraka Books
514-808-8504
(11 May 2023) Rana Bose left his family and friends yesterday after a long and courageous struggle with cancer. This review of the last book he wrote and presented to the world while already ill was written by Maya Khankhoje, who has given us permission to publish it.*
The ending closes the loop and returns to where the story began, for another generation to take over. It is no coincidence that Rana Bose has dedicated this book—his best in his compact corpus of novels—to Josephine Chameli, Colette Daisy and Fran Amiya, not merely as an affectionate gesture from a doting grandfather to his young grandchildren, but as a pledge—and a token of faith—for them not to repeat history.
* Baraka Books will honour Rana Bose in the near future. Rana is the author of four novels including two that Baraka Books is proud to have published, Fog (2019) and Shaf and the Remington (2022).
Keep My Memory Safe, Fook Soo Am, The Pagoda, a Memoir by Stephanie Chitpin, is about grief, doubt, and faith and heroes. Love is not a solo journey. Yes, there are heroes in the world of lost and abandoned children. Professor Chitpin’s memoir will make you laugh, cry, and be swept away by the celebration of love as it exists in real life. Stephanie’s memoir is an inspiration, a truly bright light of valor in the cause of justice. It is about relationships, feelings, betrayals and revelations. What I have lost is part of who I am, and so is what I chose to save. Her heart broke, but it mended. Keep My Memory Safe is about survival as an orphan to becoming a bright star in academia.
No, I have not lost you my Mauritius. No I have not lost you, my Pagoda. That will never be. You are present everywhere, most of all in me. “When you have learned how to live, life itself is the reward”. Sadness, anger, the marginalized. Yes, but overwhelmingly these hard emotions that we read about reflect a self-belief that like Dr. Chitpin, a Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa and a Doctorate recipient from the University of Toronto, all of us can ultimately and truly become triumphant, made so much sweeter by the difficulty in achieving it. Her path from A to B was never a straight line. Such courage, compassion and most of all dignity for all of humanity. A truly remarkable book for all to read.
Marvin Zuker, Associate Professor
The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Toronto, Ontario
Professor Zuker is the author and co-author of numerous books including The Law is NOT for Women with June Callwood and The Law is NOT for Kids with Ned Lecic.
Francesco Filippi, author of the 2019 Italian bestseller Mussolini Also Did a Lot of Good, The Spread of Historical Amnesia will be speaking in Montreal at a book launch/meet the author event on Saturday January 21 from 2 to 4 pm at the Paragraphe Bookstore, 2220, av. McGill College.
The event is organized with the support of the Istituto italiano di cultura of Montréal.
Here are some of the international reviews:
“an antidote to all the nonsense still circulating about fascism…. Filippi is almost surgical in the way he reestablishes the context.” La Repubblica Book of the Month
« Dans un tel climat, le scalpel de Francesco Filippi n’en est que plus nécessaire. » Le Monde
“Francesco Filippi’s book is very timely and relevant … a lesson on a past that simply doesn’t go away.” Corriere Della Sera
« agile e necessario, » La Stampa
“… extraordinarily pertinent.” Agata De Santis, Italocanadese
“We are indebted to Mr. Filippi for his skilled passion in establishing a proper analysis…” Truby Chiaviello, Primo Magazine, Washington DC
The launch and discussion will be conducted in Italian, French and English
RSVP: info@barakabooks.com
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Television Sales Is a Funny Business, Sometimes It’s Hard To Find The Laughs
Patricia Scarlett’s debut novel, Blinded by the Brass Ring, the first in the Jewelle Joseph Series will be out in April 2023 and screen rights are available.
“A fun and flirtatious insight into the nuanced experience of being an ambitious career-driven woman living a Black experience in a White workplace. A familiar conversation that has not been heard yet . . . .”
~ Donisha Prendergast, Writer/Director, Actor, Public Speaker
Looking to the journals she has kept over the years about the inner and outer workings of the domestic and international TV industry, Patricia Scarlett, founder of Media Business Institute, a Toronto-based TV training and production company, wrote Blinded by the Brass Ring. This debut novel in the Jewelle Joseph Series centres on the professional and personal life of Jewelle Joseph, an Afro-Canadian international television sales and distribution executive who works for a small TV channel with a big reputation.
Stylish and ambitious, Jewelle Joseph (JJ to her friends) has the perfect opportunity to make her move into senior management through the newly created sales and distribution spin-off company. It will mean a significant salary increase and equally important it will allow her to reign in and over her rival and fellow international sales executive, Chantal Mercier. But Chantal’s got her eye on the VP of sales position too. The competition between these two ambitious women moves from the glitzy office towers of downtown Toronto to the glamorous world of the international television market in Cannes. While navigating family drama—a philandering father and traditional Jamaican mother who tries to control Jewelle’s life and the lives of her siblings—Jewelle tries to balance her doubts about her boyfriend Anthony Brown, who Jewelle perceives as lacking in ambition, and the hot and heavy pursuit of her by Johann Eriksson, a dashing and successful Swedish television executive. Her posse’s honesty and support keep her grounded.
Author Patricia Scarlett’s stories reflect contemporary Black life in Canada and explore the intersections of race, class, and culture through a Caribbean-Canadian lens. Over the span of her career, she has worn many hats, including those of entrepreneur and consultant. She founded Scarlett Media to provide a variety of consultative services to independent producers and broadcasters on media production and distribution. Her early experience in the industry began at TVOntario where she worked primarily in international sales. As a highly successful Sales Executive, Scarlett was responsible for opening up the Latin American market and she initiated and closed TVOntario’s first educational broadcast and educational non-broadcast sales in Brazil. Her relationships with producers and broadcasters culminated in several significant achievements including her licensing Atanarjuat: The Fast Runner, winner of the Camera D’Or at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival, to CBC Television. She is the recipient of the 2020 Afroglobal Television Media Award.
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