Working on the new website, we've enjoyed reminding ourselves of the invariably stimulating books we've published and the vast number of Salon articles. Much has changed since www.lindaleith.com came into existence in March, 2011, and we're planning a growing role for Salon .ll. This website is not only a promotional tool; it's at the centre of what we do.
You'll find news below of our books, honours, events, reviews, Salon posts -- French and English -- and everything else we thought you might be interested in, including -- you'll need to scroll down the page for this -- a sneak preview of what's coming up over the months to come.
[Photo: Linda Leith. Author Xue Yiwei at mRb launch at Montreal's great Librairie Drawn & Quarterly, July 2016.]
May 3, 2018, 3 p.m.
Xue Yiwei is in Sydney, Australia, this week at the invitation of the Sydney Writers' Festival. His first event, an on-stage conversation about his novel Dr. Bethune's Children, with Linda Jaivin, is on Thursday, May 3rd, at 3 p.m., and his second, a panel discussion about the Future of China, with Minghu Chen and Robert E. Kelly, takes place at 11:30 a.m on Friday, May 4th. [Photo: Stephane Lavoie]
April 29, 2018, 11:30 a.m.
Ariela Freedman, author of the acclaimed first novel Arabic for Beginners, in conversation with Daniel Mendelsohn, at the 20th Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival. McCord Museum.
April 29, 2018, 1:30 p.m.
Authors Ariela Freedman, Leila Marshy, and Chantal Ringuet are all appearing in The Gabriel Safdie Event: Jerusalem of the Mind at the 20th Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival. As Palestinian-Canadian Marshy says, "Jerusalem was a city long dreamed about by people who never saw it, which was then turned into a nightmare for the people who had never left."
April 27, 2018, 7 - 8:15 p.m.
Linda Leith Publishing is celebrating spring. Join us for our BIG LAUNCH at Blue Met, Friday, April 27, 7 p.m. Free.
Cristina Carvalho, Phillip Ernest, Abla Farhoud, Leila Marshy, Jennifer Quist, Judith Weisz Woodsworth, Peter Kirby.
Animation: Maurice Forget, Katia Grubisic, Carmelita McGrath, Elise Moser, Kody Sheer, Linda Leith
Salle Godin, HOTEL 10, 10 Sherbrooke W., Montréal.
April 26, 2018, 12:30 - 1:30 p.m.
The Atwater Library and Computer Centre lunchtime series hosts Phillip Ernest reading from his Sanskrit vampire novel The Vetala and chatting with Linda Leith on Thursday, April 26th, starting at 12:30 p.m. Born in New Liskeard, Ontario, Ernest moved from skid row in Toronto to the University of Toronto and a Ph.D. in Sanskrit from Cambridge. He lives in Bengaluru, India. Copies of his novel will be on sale at the event.
April 20, 2018, 8 p.m.
The Us & Them Writer-Translator Reading Series features Judith Weisz Woodsworth, translator of Montreal writer Abla Farhoud's Hutchison Street. Taking place on Friday, April 20th, 8 p.m. at Molasses Books, 770 Hart Street, Brooklyn NY 11237 (DeKalb L), the event also includes Jenny McPhee, translator of Curzio Malaparte (Italy), Sverrir Norland (self-translation, Iceland), and Cristina Pérez Diaz, translator of Julia de Burgos (Puerto Rico).
April 16, 2018, 7 - 10 p.m.
Please join us for the launch of Leila Marshy's first novel, The Philistine, at Restaurant Kazamaza, 4629 av. du Parc, Montreal, Quebec H2V 4E4, the first in a whole series of events celebrating her book at the Blue Metropolis festival, at Bibliothèque de Rigaud, and at Octopus Books in Ottawa.
April 9, 2018, 7 - 8 p.m.
Xue Yiwei, author of Shenzheners and Dr. Bethune's Children, heads back to Toronto for his second appearance at the Toronto Public Library, this time at the Toronto Reference Library, Beeton Hall.
April 7, 2018, 1 p.m.
Xue Yiwei, author of Shenzheners and Dr. Bethune's Children, is appearing at the Morrin Centre in Quebec City as part of the ImagiNation Festival on Saturday, April 7th, 1 p.m.
April 6, 2018, 7 p.m.
Award-winning novelist Jennifer Quist launches her third book, the brilliant courtroom drama, The Apocalypse of Morgan Turner, at Audrey's in Edmonton on Friday, April 6th, 7 p.m. [Photo: Linda Leith]
March 28, 2018, 6 - 7:30 p.m.
This one's in the "wish I could be there" category. Bestselling LLP author Xue Yiwei, author of Dr. Bethune's Children, is speaking about "Navigating China's Complex Literary Scene" at the China Institute, 40 Rector Street, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10006.
Event Fee: Members Free; Non-Members $10.
March 24, 2018
The first review of Jennifer Quist's new novel is both thoughtful and appreciative, as well as being very good: "Readers wanting a fast-paced whodunit should look elsewhere. The Apocalypse of Morgan Turner is for those seeking something graver and richer, more nuanced and thought-provoking, something with no easy ending, however the verdict comes back. They will leave it feeling, as Morgan did after finally seeing the inside of the abattoir, “like any new initiate, considering something that was much less and much more than expected, all at once.” Thank you, mRb!
March 24, 2018
The new mRb is out, with a great review of Leila Marshy's novel! "Nadia’s recognition that her sexuality is more fluid than she had previously understood reinforces that perhaps everything about her is likewise mutable. Marshy’s controlled prose underscores this complexity: “‘I guess I’ll stay in Cairo as long as it takes.’ Then [Nadia] added, realizing it could be anything: ‘Whatever it is.’” The beauty of The Philistine is the novel’s ability to recognize and celebrate journeying across places and into one’s self, even when the destination is perpetually shifting.
March 3, 2018
Great turnout for that Atwater Library event on Mavis Gallant a couple of weeks ago -- and great coverage, too, both in The Gazette and now in the Feb. 27th issue of the Westmount Independent. Lovely crowd, so interested in Mavis, and they even bought a whole bunch of copies of her play What Is To Be Done? (LLP, 2017).
March 11, 2018, 2 p.m.
Xue Yiwei has a busy couple of months coming up. He's now in Beijing for the Bookworm Literary Festival: FICTIONALISING CHINA features Xue Yiwei, Sun Yisheng, and Zheng Zaihuan. Three talented Chinese novelists and short story writers will discuss their award-winning works and how they take China as both a setting and a character and position it in their prose. This event will be consecutively translated in English and Chinese.
February 15, 2018, 12:30-1:30 p.m.
Writer and publisher Linda Leith marks the fourth anniversary of Mavis Gallant's death by screening the film Paris Stories: The Writing of Mavis Gallant. The screening will be followed by discussion, and attendees will have the option of taking part in a free writing activity led by Linda Leith. Atwater Library and Computer Centre auditorium, 1200 Atwater, Montreal.
February 11, 2018
Phillip Ernest is a Canadian writer with an extraordinary personal history, as even the briefest version of his bio suggests: "Born in 1970, Phillip Ernest grew up in New Liskeard, Ontario. Fleeing home at fifteen, he lived on Toronto’s skid row until he was twenty-eight. He learned Sanskrit from the book Teach Yourself Sanskrit, and later earned a BA in South Asian Studies from the University of Toronto and a PhD in Sanskrit from Cambridge."
You can read the first part of Linda Leith's Q & A with Phillip Ernest here and Part II here.
February 6, 2018
Peter Kirby's Inspector Luc Vanier's novels are Montreal novels, revealing the gritty underside of Sin City first in The Dead of Winter -- now an audiobook -- and then in Vigilante Season and the Arthur Ellis Best Novel award-winning Open Season. Thanks to All Lit Up for the feature on Luc Vanier's Montreal!
January 29, 2018
Two novels by the distinguished Portuguese author Cristina Carvalho will be published worldwide by Linda Leith Publishing - Linda Leith Éditions in Spring 2018: Rebellion, an English translation by Alexandra Andresen Leitão of Rebeldia, and Modigliani, un roman, the French translation by Sophie Enderlin of the award-winning O Olhar et a Alma - Romance de Modigliani. [Photo: José Lorvão]
January 14, 2018.
Jennifer Quist's new novel is a courtroom drama entitled The Apocalypse of Morgan Turner.
Morgan Turner’s grief over her sister’s brutal murder has become a rut, an everyday horror she is caught in along with her estranged parents and chilly older brother. In search of a way out, she delves the depths of a factory abattoir, classic horror cinema -- and the Canadian criminal justice system.
You can link to the book trailer here.
January 11, 2018,
Spring is on its way. Jennifer Quist's new novel on the 49th Shelf Most Anticipated list! The award-winning author of The Love Letters of the Angels of Death (2013) and Sistering (2015) is moving in new directions with The Apocalypse of Morgan Turner, a courtroom drama. Pre-order now!
January 4, 2018
Dying to find out about Leila Marshy's first novel, The Philistine, which will be published March 9, 2018? Check out the book trailer here!
January 3, 2018
Linda Leith (right) shares a pot of tea and discusses some recent Portuguese fiction with Luisa Pinto Teixeira and Ingrid Bejerman on a wintry January afternoon in Montreal. [Photo: Ingrid Bejerman]
January 02, 2018
Terry Mosher has been publishing Aislin cartoons in The Gazette for over 50 years, and in almost as many books (three of which are published by LLP). He'll now be reducing his output to just one cartoon a week. To honour the end the year-long series Aislin at 50, Terry lists dozens of the people he has worked with and laughed with over the course of his brilliant career. (The image of a ring that was given to him by his wife Mary represents the number of Gazette editors he has outlasted.)
December 27, 2017
French creator Short Edition, with many Distributeurs d’histoires courtes in Europe, is expanding into North America. “We’re the first one in Canada," says Edmonton organizer Jason Lee Norman. Jennifer Quist The Apocalypse of Morgan Turner (LLP, March 2018), is one of almost 100 authors with works loaded in the unit. Story by Scott Hayes, St. Albert
December 26, 2017
"Mr. Xue, and even President Xi are all Dr. Bethune’s children, and by inference also Mao’s children. Nobel Prize for Literature has been very much a political game. I think only about 10% of the winners in last 60 years since WW2 are worthy the prize, certainly not the Chinese winners. After reading only one book by Xue Yiwei, I think he may truly deserve one." -- N. M. Cheung, posting on Hidden Harmonies, 21 November 2017.
December 23, 2017
Yet another accolade for Dr. Bethune's Children by Xue Yiwei, which makes The Gazette's 2017 best books list!
December 22, 2017
"Merry Effing Christmas, or, Giving Rum Another Chance, or, Rum Gives Me Another Chance," is an excerpt from Jonah Campbell's book Eaten Back to Life, published on Salon .ll. just in time for Christmas, by kind permission of Invisible Publishing. Find out more about the book -- and buy yourself a copy -- on the publisher's website here.
December 11, 2017
Quill & Quire's 2017 Books of the Year is now online, very much including Ariela Freedman's wonderful novel Arabic for Beginners: "In Arabic for Beginners – her affecting, polished, and deeply confident debut novel – Ariela Freedman presents the Middle East conflict as we’ve rarely seen it, through the eyes of an ambivalent wife and mother. Freedman’s prose is so fluid and flawless that I felt I could trust her, paragraph after paragraph, to take me wherever she wanted to go." –Mark Sampson
December 8, 2017
Salon .ll. is delighted to welcome Leigh Kinch-Pedrosa as Contributing Editor. The general manager of Confabulation Montreal, an organization dedicated to the growth of the storytelling community in Canada, Leigh is the founder of The Confab Story Lab and has produced live events for CBC Books All Told and Off-JFL. She has told stories for Tales from the Black, Yarn, Vanier College, Confabulation, and Phi Centre’s ongoing exhibit Lucid Realities.
December 7, 2017, 1:15 p.m.
Linda Leith participates in a panel discussion on "Publishing Literature in Translation in Montreal" hosted by Benoît Léger, with author, anthropologist and L'Espace de la diversité president Yara El-Ghadban, as part of a colloquium on Translating Arabic in Montreal. McConnell Building LB-619, 1400 de Maisonneuve W. For information: figura@concordia.ca. Free.
December 6, 2017
"Decrying the senselessness of violence. Novelist draws parallels between Polytechnique, Tiananmen massacres." Gazette feature on Dr. Bethune's Children author Xue Yiwei by Marian Scott on the anniversary of the Polytechnique massacre of December 6, 1989. [Photo: The Gazette]
November 30, 2017
The Governor General's Literary Awards ceremony at Rideau Hall is a smashing party and an opportunity to catch up with old friends. Pictured are Sophie Cazenave, once communications director at Blue Metropolis and now literary webmaster at Radio-Canada; Managing Director of CBC Quebec Meredith Dellandrea (left), Linda Leith, and QWF President Linda M. Morra, who took the photo (right).
November 27, 2017
At the end of every year, The Guardian newspaper asks a range of publishers to pick their hits and misses. This year, Peter McCambridge at QuébecReads has started a new tradition of our own and asked a handful of Canadian publishers -- LLP included -- to look back at 2017, with the focus on Quebec fiction.
November 27, 2017
What a month! It began with Xue Yiwei on the cover of the new mRb and a terrific cover story by Anita Anand about Dr. Bethune's Children. Then came the New York Times feature by Taras Grescoe and, within days, an invitation to Yiwei to participate in the great Sydney Writers' Festival. And now, Dr. B is the only translation of a Canadian novel on The Globe and Mail's list of the 100 Best Books of 2017.
November 25-26, 2017
Michael Blair (pictured), Ariela Freedman, Jack Hannan, Peter Kirby, and Xue Yiwei are among the LLP authors appearing at the Monument National café, 1182 Blvd St. Laurent, Montréal, as part of the 3rd annual Holiday Pop-up Book Fair Free. And fun.
November 25, 2017
Dr. Bethune's Children is on The Globe and Mail's 100 Best Books of 2017 where, in this golden age of literary translation in Canada, this extraordinary novel is the only Canadian fiction in translation on the list. And it's a translation from Chinese, which is why it isn't even eligible for most of Canada's literary prizes. Congratulations to author Xue Yiwei and to translator Darryl Sterk!
November 24, 2017, 12:30 p.m.
Abou Farman, author of Clerks of the Passage (LLP) and Les lieux du passage (LLÉ), appears at McGill (Peterson Hall 116, 3460 McTavish Street), presenting Aesthetic, Anaesthetic, Synaesthetic: Making Senses of the Afterlife in 3 Acts, A performance talk featuring protons, smells, tumours, shamans, insects, physicians and blindfolds. Followed, at 3 p.m. with a screening of his acclaimed film Icaros: A Vision at Concordia (H-1120).
November 21, 2017, 7 p.m.
The Quebec Writers' Federation Gala at the Lion d'Or: 1676 Ontario Street E., Montreal. This is always a great party. Tickets info at www.qwf.org. Ariela Freedman, who is shortlisted for the Concordia QWF First Book Prize for her delightfully accomplished first novel, Arabic for Beginners. Cheering for you, Ariela!
November 17, 2017
LLP author Xue Yiwei, author of Dr. Bethune's Children, is featured in today's New York Times. The article is by award-winning Montreal writer Taras Grescoe, who interviewed Xue Yiwei on stage at the Blue Metropolis festival in April 2017. [Photo: The New York Times]
November 16, 6 p.m., November 18th, 2 p.m.
LLP|LLÉ Award-winning crime writer Peter Kirby, whose first novel, The Dead of Winter, has just appeared in Rachel Martinez's French translation, will be signing copies of Vague d'effroi, at Stand 216, Place Bonaventure, Montreal. [Photo: Linda Leith]
November 14, 2017
The December issue of Quill & Quire has just arrived, and Ariela Freedman's novel is one of the books named as the Best of 2017! Congratulations, Ariela!
November 8, 2017, 7 p.m.
From Richard King, via Twitter: "As I reported on @cbcHomerun Dr. Bethune's Children by Xue Yiwei is a wonderful novel bringing together great Chinese characters & and a narrator living in Montreal @LL publishing. [Photo of Yiwei with the statue of Norman Bethune in Montreal: Stephane Lavoie]
November 6, 2017, 7 p.m.
The Montreal Review of Books launches its 20th anniversary issue with Kathleen Winter, Linda Besner, and LLP author Xue Yiwei (Shenzheners, Dr. Bethune's Children) on the cover. La Petite Librairie Drawn & Quarterly, 176 Bernard Ouest. [Photo: Stephane Lavoie]
November 3, 2017
The 20th anniversay issue of Montreal Review of Books arrived with today's copy of The Globe and Mail, with Xue Yiwei on the front cover and a great story about his first novel in English, Dr. Bethune's Children, by Anita Anand. The issue launches Monday, Nov 7, 7 p.m. at La Petite Librairie Drawn & Quarterly, 176 Bernard Ouest.
November 1, 2017
The November Quill & Quire features a review of George Fetherling's noir novel The Carpenter of Montreal alongside one of the collection Montreal Noir -- which includes Peter Kirby.
October 20, 2017
Great Q&A with The Carpenter from Montreal author George Fetherling in yesterday's Globe and Mail. Q: "What's the best sentence you've ever written?" A: "It may be from the new book."
October 15, 2017
Spreading our wings! Linda Leith Publishing | Linda Leith Éditions participates in the stupendous 2017 Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time, but not for the last time as Canadian participation grows in advance of October, 2020, when Canada will be featured country. Thank you to Livres Canada Books for its support. Auf Wiedersehen, indeed.
September 6, 2017
Actors Howard Rosenstein, Susan Glover, Eleanor Noble (pictured, left to right), Dean Patrick Fleming, and Gabielle Soskin did a brilliant informal reading of Mavis Gallant's play What Is To Be Done? Thank you to them all and to Pat Donnelly for bringing them together.
Nada Marjanovic, professor of Sanskrit, has spent more than twenty years translating an obscure text on the vetala, a parasitic, vampire-like being that possesses the bodies of his victims. When her mentor in Pune dies, she finds herself face-to-face with the undead that the text describes. The Vetala will be published in March.
A moving account of isolated individuals attempting to reach out to one another in one of Montreal’s most diverse neighbourhoods. Hasidic Montreal as seen through the eyes of an award-winning Quebec writer and playwright of Lebanese descent. Abla Farhoud's first novel in English, Hutchison Street, has been translated by Judith Weisz Woodsworth. March.
Montreal writer and editor Leila Marshy is of Palestinian-Newfoundland heritage—she can tell a good joke, but it bombs. And she's just put the finishing touches to her first novel. The Philistine finds Nadia in Cairo, rediscovering her roots, her language, her ambitions, and the unavoidable destiny of becoming a Philistine – the Arabic word for Palestinian. March.
Jennifer Quist has published two award-winning novels with LLP, Love Letters of the Angels of Death (2013) and Sistering (2015). Her third is The Apocalypse of Morgan Turner, a courtroom drama about a family roiled by murder and injustice. March.
Peter KIrby's bestselling first crime novel is on its way as an audiobook! Read by Montreal actor Howard Rosenstein, The Dead of Winter was always a compelling read in English. It's now available in French, as well, as Vague d'effroi (LLP 2017; trans. Rachel Martinez). And you'll be able to sit back and listen to Inspector Luc Vanier's first gripping case very soon. In the dead of winter, no less.
See Peter Kirby talk about The Dead of Winter here.
