ESPLANADE'S TRACK RECORD MAKES NICOL A GOOD BET
In the literary world, you don’t always see the next thing coming. Even if you’re among the select circle given to combing publishers’ catalogues and quarterly magazines, predicting who might rise from the vast pool of hopefuls can feel like a fool’s errand. So it’s nice to have a marker or two to help make it all a little less random.
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| Mikella Nicol |
Véhicule Press’s Esplanade Fiction imprint, currently under the stewardship of Dimitri Nasrallah, is one such standard-bearer.
As in the
old days when you’d buy a record on faith if it bore the Rough Trade or
Factory seal, the Esplanade brand has earned readers’ loyalty. Among the
alumni are Anita Anand, Guillaume Morissette, Geneviève Pettersen,
Josip Novakovich and, indeed, Nasrallah himself. This spring their ranks
will be joined by 26-year-old Montrealer Mikella Nicol, who makes her
English-language debut with Aphelia, a translation of her second novel,
2017’s Aphélie.
The basic setup — a 20-something graveyard-shift worker at a call centre during a summer heat wave is on the rebound from a volatile relationship — already includes at least four elements rife with dramatic portent. The catalogue description includes words like “brooding,” “millennial” and “ennui,” so as a novel of urban youth, this one sounds both timeless and bang up to date.
Its April publication is part of a bigger and heartening development whereby French-language causes célèbres are being rendered in English in less time than we’d been used to. In this case, that assignment went to fiction writer, poet and Montreal Review of Books editor Lesley Trites, indicative of another trend that sees name writers of both languages translating their fellow writers’ work.
The basic setup — a 20-something graveyard-shift worker at a call centre during a summer heat wave is on the rebound from a volatile relationship — already includes at least four elements rife with dramatic portent. The catalogue description includes words like “brooding,” “millennial” and “ennui,” so as a novel of urban youth, this one sounds both timeless and bang up to date.
Its April publication is part of a bigger and heartening development whereby French-language causes célèbres are being rendered in English in less time than we’d been used to. In this case, that assignment went to fiction writer, poet and Montreal Review of Books editor Lesley Trites, indicative of another trend that sees name writers of both languages translating their fellow writers’ work.
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| Lesley Trites |
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