Quill & Quire Speaks to Esplanade Editor Dimitri Nasrallah about Revamped Fiction Imprint

Turning the Page at Esplanade

When Esplanade Books relaunches this spring, Véhicule Press’s fiction imprint will be publishing more authors under a wider mandate. For the past year, new Esplanade editor Dimitri Nasrallah and co-publisher Simon Dardick have been working to curate a list that aptly represents the imprint’s revitalized vision.  This new list represents a clean start for Esplanade’s second decade, balancing fearless debuts and internationally lauded authors as it straddles Canada’s two official languages.

We’re honoured to be publishing the first collection of stories by Croatian writer Josip Novakovich since he was named finalist for the 2013 Man Booker International Prize and became a Canadian citizen. Heralded by the Kirkus Review as “the best American short-story writer of the decade”, Novakovich arrives at Esplanade with a formidable international reputation already in hand, but no Canadian publication record to match. Novakovich’s first Esplanade title, Ex-Yu, will appear this fall. A second collection is due in 2017.

Novakovich is in the good company of Québécois writer Éric Plamondon. Author of the 1984 Trilogy, which includes the novels Hungary-Hollywood Express, Mayonnaise, and Apple S, this contemporary Québécois classic offers a wildly experimental look back at the twentieth century through the lens of Tarzan actor Johnny Weissmuller, counter-culture author Richard Brautigan, and Apple mastermind Steve Jobs respectively. The translations are being undertaken by Esplanade editor Dimitri Nasrallah and will be published between 2016 and 2018.

Plamondon was first published by the innovative Quebec house Le Quartanier, with whom we’ve cultivated a productive working relationship that has also resulted in the acquisition of Geneviève Pettersen’s runaway bestseller, The Goddess of Fireflies, which has been all the rage in Quebec since it was first published last spring. Neil Smith, author of Boo! and Bang Crunch, is translating Fireflies for publication in 2016. Both Pettersen’s and Plamondon’s novels represent a new pursuit for Esplanade: giving Quebec’s English writers the opportunity to translate the French-language novels to which they feel a deep kinship.

We’ll be kicking off the new Esplanade list with Toronto author Andy Sinclair’s first novel, Breathing Lessons, a deeply provocative and powerful exploration of what modern life can be like for gay men.  Canada Reads finalist Angie Abdou writes, “I’m not exaggerating when I say that Andy Sinclair is doing something no other Canadian writer has done, possibly something no other Canadian writer has dared to do,” while Giller Prize finalist Marina Endicott writes, “Sinclair’s ferocious and straightforward prose bares a broken, still-open heart searching for something better.”

Sinclair’s debut will be followed by Montreal writer Anita Anand’s first collection of stories, Swing in the House. Anand paints a devastating portrait of Canadian families in their most private moments. She pulls back the curtains to reveal the unspoken complexities within the modern home, from sibling rivalries to fracturing marriages, casual racism to damaged egos.

Our 2015 list rounds out with Sheila Fischman’s translation of Jacques Poulin’s brilliant novella, English Is Not a Magic Language.  Best known to English readers as the author of the classic Volkswagen Blues, which was a finalist for the 2005 edition of Canada Reads, Poulin is enjoying something of a revival lately, having had three of his last English translations published by the esteemed American house, Archipelago Books.

Dimitri Nasrallah
Editor, Esplanade Books

The House That Books Built

Susan Glickman's opening remarks before her reading at the November 8, 2012 Signal Editions launch held at Drawn & Quarterly bookstore:

Before I read you a few poems from my new book, The Smooth Yarrow, I want to say a few words about a subject close to my heart and, I suspect, to the hearts of everybody in this room. In the wake of the recent bankruptcy of Douglas & McIntyre and the merger of two big multinationals into the even bigger House of the Random Penguin, we’ve heard a lot of dark prophesies about the inevitable death of independent publishing in this country. Well, being a poet whose language never fails her, I have only one thing to say to that: bollocks! I am only here tonight because of the vision, energy, dedication, and hard work of Simon Dardick and people like him. There are, in fact, 130 members of the Association of Canadian Publishers, so theoretically there are at least 129 other people like Simon out there. But I doubt there are many whose service to Canadian publishing has continued, unbroken, for 40 years. 

Simon has been with Véhicule Press since it began in 1973 on the premises of Véhicule Art Inc., one of Canada's first artist-run galleries at 61 Ste-Catherine St. West (a space that housed a famous jazz club, Café Montmarte, back in the 1930s). In 1975 the press became Coopérative d'Imprimerie Véhicule—Quebec's only cooperatively-owned printing and publishing company. It moved spaces twice more before the co-op was dissolved in the spring of 1981, and Simon Dardick and Nancy Marrelli continued operating Véhicule Press from Roy Street East, where they still live to this day: the house that books built, and one that might just come tumbling down if you move too many bookcases. 

Simon invited me to submit a manuscript after reading some poems of mine in The Canadian Forum that year. Michael Harris, the founding editor of Signal Editions, edited my first book, Complicity, which came out in 1983. When Carmine Starnino took over as Signal Editions editor in January 2001, he was kind enough to keep me on as one of his authors. So I have a lot to be grateful for, having been with Véhicule Press for thirty years. In fact, I have been married to Simon Dardick longer than I’ve been married to my husband. 

L’autre chose á laquelle je veux attirer votre attention est l’engagement de la presse, dès la commencement, á faire les traductions élegants de la poésie francaise á l’Anglais. Je suis très heureuse de partager la scène ce soir avec Pierre Nepveu et Donald Winkler. Pour tous, je tu remercie, Simon. Will you please join me in a round of applause for a man who has never given up on his commitment to make beautiful books by Canadian authors for Canadian readers?

In Conversation

Amatoritsero Ed interviews Vehicule Press's Big Kahuna, Simon Dardick.

Black Tie, Long Dress

Simon and Richard in the green house.

These lovely ladies (starting from the left) are my wife, Jennifer Varkonyi, and Richard's wife, Marianne Marusic.