Here are some of the authors and translators who have helped make Baraka a great venue for  important literary, historical, and political works that might otherwise not be known.

Authors

François Barcelo is author of more than forty novels for adults and younger readers. A past winner of the Governor General’s Award, he was the first Quebecer published in Gallimard’s prestigious Série Noire collection. His novel Cadavres was made into a movie in 2008. I Hate Hockey, published by Baraka Books is his first novel in English.

Carla Blank is the author of Live On Stage! and Rediscovering America: The Making of Multicultural America, 1900–2000. Her articles have appeared in El Pais, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal, Green Magazine, Hungry Mind Review,Counterpunch, and Konch. She lives in Oakland, California. She is co-author with Tania Martin of Storming the Old Boys’ Citadel, Two Pioneer Women Architects of Nineteenth Century North America.

Guy Bouthillier holds a law degree from McGill University and a PhD from the Sorbonne (Paris). He is honorary professor of political science at the Université de Montréal where he taught for thirty years. He edited with Édouard Cloutier the anthology Trudeau’s Darkest Hour, War Measures in Time of Peace, October 1970.

Sébastien Chartrand has worked primarily in international criminal law since becoming member of the Quebec Bar. He has been legal defence assistant in cases before the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia. He earned his law degree from the Université du Québec à Montréal   He co-edited with John Philpot Justice Belied, The Unbalanced Scales of International Criminal Justice.

Édouard Cloutier holds a PhD from Rochester University, New York. He taught political science at the Université du Québec à Montréal, McGill University, and the Université de Montréal where he chaired the Political Science Department for many years. He has chaired the Société Québécoise de science politique and co-directed the Canadian Political Science Review. Édouard Cloutier edited with Guy Bouthillier the anthology Trudeau’s Darkest Hour, War Measures in Time of Peace, October 1970.

Jim Dann volunteered for the Mississippi Summer Project organized by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in 1964 and stayed on the following year as an SNCC field secretary. He lived in Vacaville, California. Jim died of leukemia on June 16, 2013. He had just finished writing Challenging the Mississippi Firebombers, Memories of Mississippi 1964-65, published in fall 2013.

Magali Favre grew up in Montreal and now lives in Paris. As a teacher and now a full-time writer, she conveys her passion and concern for history, education, and disappearing languages and cultures. She is the author of six novels and a young people’s guide to the French language. Magali Favre wrote the YA novel 21 Days in October.

Nick Fonda is a teacher, journalist, and writer. He has contributed to various newspapers and reviews, including The Montreal Gazette and The Sherbrooke Record, and is the author of Roads to Richmond, Portraits of Quebec’s Eastern Townships, Hanging Fred and a Few Others, Painters of the Eastern Townships, and the collection of short stories, Principals and Other Schoolyard Bullies.

Maximilian C. Forte is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University in Montréal, Québec. He teaches courses in the field of political anthropology dealing with “the new imperialism,” Indigenous resistance movements and philosophies, theories and histories of colonialism, and critiques of the mass media. Max is a founding member of Anthropologists for Justice and Peace. He writes for the Zero Anthropology Project, CounterPunch, and other publications. His Slouching Towards Sirte, NATO’s War on Libya and Africa has been described as the “definitive treatment of NATO’s war on Libya.

Martin Fournier won the Governor General’s Award for the original French version of The Adventures of Radisson. Historian and writer, he has taught at the Université du Québec and published books on Radisson and day-to-day life in New France. Since 2006 he has been Project Coordinator and Editor of the Encyclopedia of French Cultural Heritage in North America. He is the author of The Adventures of Radisson, Vol. 1, Hell Never Burns, Vol. 2, Back to the New World and Vol. 3, The Incredible Escape.

David Gidmark is the author of ten books. Born in Winsconsin, he has lectured on the birchbark canoe throughout the world, including at the Smithsonian Institution. David Gidmark lives in Maniwaki, Québec. He is the author of Speak to Me in Indian.

Bernd Gieseking, comedian and writer, hails from Minden, Germany. His dramatization of Weike’s and Boas’s arctic sojourn, The Colour of Water, premiered in 2010. He lives in Germany. He is co-author with Ludger Müller-Wille of Inuit and Whalers on Baffin Island Through German Eyes, which was translated from the German by William Barr.

Barry Healey is a former television writer. He has written, directed, and produced award-winning short films as well as feature films. He is the author of The Sex Life of the Amoeba. He is co-author with Cordelia Strube of Exhilarating Prose.

Sylvain Hotte is an award-winning writer of fiction for young adults and children. He was born in Montreal to an Innu mother and a Québécois father and now lives in Quebec City. His first series Darhan was astoundingly successful. He is author of YA Break Away series, Vol. 1 Jessie on My Mind and Vol. 2 Power Forward.

James Jackson holds a DPhil from Oxford University. He taught French and Quebec Literature and History for 25 years at Trinity College Dublin. Twice elected president of the Association for Canadian Studies in Ireland, James Jackson now lives in Montreal. He is author of The Riot that Never Was, The Military Shooting of Three Montrealers in 1832 and the Official Cover-up.

Jane Jacobs (1916-2006) was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and lived in New York and Toronto. She wrote six other books that have sold in millions, including the groundbreaking The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961). Baraka Books is proud to have published Jane Jacobs’ only book on her adopted country, Canada, The Question of Separatism, Quebec and the Struggle over Sovereignty.

Claude Lacaille is a priest of the Foreign Mission Society (Société des missions étrangères) and a Biblicist who lived in Haiti and Ecuador from 1965 to 1974 and in Chile from 1975 to 1986. Prevented from returning to Chile by both Chilean and Ecclesiastical authorities, Claude Lacaille continued to fight for justice and freedom. He lives in Trois-Rivières, Québec. He is author of Rebel Priest in the Time of Tyrants, Mission to Haiti, Ecuador and Chile.

Jacques Lacoursière is a household name, synonymous with History in Quebec. His five-volume Histoire populaire du Québec has been a bestseller since the first volume appeared in 1995. To date more than 300,000 copies have been sold. He is co-author with Robin Philpot of A People’s History of Quebec.

Paul-André Linteau is professor of history at the Université du Québec à Montréal. Specializing in economic, social, and urban history, he has written many books on the history of Quebec and Canada, with an emphasis on Montreal. His many awards include the Prix Léon-Gérin, Quebec’s highest distinction in humanities, and the International Canadian Studies Award of Excellence. Paul-André Linteau is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Paul-André Linteau is the author of The History of Montréal, The Story of A Great North American City.

Mick Lowe, a prolific journalist, writer and newspaper columnist, is the author of the Canadian true crime classic Conspiracy of Brothers: A True Story of Bikers, Murder and the Law. Born and raised in Nebraska, Lowe immigrated to Canada in 1970. He moved to Sudbury, Ontario in 1974 where he became an avid student of that city’s turbulent labour history. He is author of The Nickel Range Trilogy, Volume 1 The Raids and Volume 2 The Insatiable Maw.

Tania Martin is a professor at the Université Laval School of Architecture in Québec City where she has held the Canada Research Chair in Built Religious Heritage since 2005. She has published essays in scholarly journals on architectural history and North American religious institutional structures. She lives in Québec City. She is co-author with Carla Blank of Storming the Old Boys’ Citadel, Two Pioneer Women Architects of Nineteenth Century North America.

Ludger Müller-Wille taught geography at McGill University and studied human conditions in Finland’s and Canada’s North; he previously published Franz Boas’s arctic journals. He lives in Montreal. He is co-author with Bernd Gieseking of Inuit and Whalers on Baffin Island Through German Eyes, translated from the German by William Barr, and The Franz Boas Enigma, Inuit, Arctic, and Science.

Pierre-Claver Ndacyayisenga was born in Rwanda in 1962. He taught primary school before earning a degree in history from the Université nationale du Rwanda. A history teacher in Kigali,  he was forced to flee with his family in 1994. Father of four children, he now lives in Montreal. He is the author of Dying to Live, A Rwandan Family’s Five-Year Flight Across the Congo.

Jacques Parizeau (1930-2015) earned a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics at the age of 24 and was economic advisor to Quebec premiers Lesage, Johnson, and Bertrand. Elected to the Quebec National Assembly in 1976, he was Minister of Finance from 1976 through 1984. He was elected premier of Quebec in 1994 and led the Yes committee in the 1995 referendum. He was honorary professor of economics at HEC Montréal until he passed away on June 1, 2015. He is author of An Independent Quebec, The Past, the Present and the Future.

John Philpot has thirty years’ experience as a criminal defence lawyer, including twenty in international criminal justice. He has represented clients before the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, including the Appeal Court in The Hague, and the International Criminal Court. He co-edited with Sébastien Chartrand Justice Belied, The Unbalanced Scales of International Criminal Justice.

Robin Philpot is a Montréal writer, translator, and publisher. Born in Thunder Bay, Ontario and a graduate of the University of Toronto, he lived and worked in Africa for several years before settling in Montreal, Quebec. He is the author of six books in French on  international politics and on Quebec and Canadian political issues. With Baraka Books, his publications include Rwanda and the New Scramble for Africa, From Tragedy to Useful Imperial Fiction and A People’s History of Quebec (with Jacques Lacoursière) and in French Le référendum volé and Derrière l’État Desmarais: Power. Robin Philpot also translated An Independent Quebec, The Past, the Present and the Future by Jacques Parizeau.

Robert A. Poirier lives in the log cabin he made on his land near Maniwaki, Quebec. He studies Algonquin, has embraced Algonquin spiritual beliefs, and treats and cares for all species of fauna at his wild animal rehabilitation centre. He is the author of Washika, A Novel and On the Crow and Other Stories,

Ishmael Reed is a prize-winning essayist, novelist, poet and playwright. He taught at the University of California-Berkeley for thirty-five years, as well as at Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth. Author of more than twenty-five books, he is a member of Harvard’s Signet Society and Yale’s Calhoun Society. He lives in Oakland, California. Baraka Books has published three books by Ishmael Reed, The Complete Muhammad Ali, Going Too Far, Essays About America’s Nervous Breakdown, and Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media, The Return of the Nigger Breakers.

David Reich was born and seasoned in Montreal; his parents were immigrants rich only in their heritage and appreciation for their adopted country and its opportunities. David Reich abandoned a sixty-year career in teaching and architecture to enjoy the pleasures and disappointments of writing. He is the author of You could lose an eye, My first 80 years in Montreal.

Marie-Paule Robitaille, Curator of the First Nations and Inuit Collections at the Musées de la civilisation, directed the publication. Before joining the Musée in 1988, Marie-Paule Robitaille was curator of the Amerindian and Métis Collections for Parks Canada, Prairies and Northern Region, and she also managed the Maison Louis Riel in Winnipeg (Saint-Boniface). She holds a BA from the Collège universitaire de Saint-Boniface (University of Manitoba) and a degree in Art History and French Civilisation from the IUT de Larochelle (Université de Poitiers) in France. She was director of Journey to the Heart of the First Peoples Collections.

Käthe Roth is a translator, editor and writer who has worked closely with Denis Vaugeois on many projects. She is co-author of America’s Gift, What the World Owes to the Americas and Their First Inhabitants and translated The First Jews in North America, The Extraordinary Story of the Hart Family, 1760-1860. Käthe Roth was also the principal translator of Journey to the Heart of the First Peoples Collections.

Marjolaine Saint-Pierre has written several history books and biographies in French. She is the author of Joseph-Elzéar Bernier, Champion of Canadian Arctic Sovereignty, translated by William Barr and described as “the definitive book” on the great navigator.

Bob Sirois played for the Philadelphia Flyers and the Washington Capitals, earning 212 points in 286 NHL games. He represented the Washington Capitals in the 1978 All Star Game. Forced to retire early by a severe back injury, he has remained active in hockey. Bob Sirois lives in Montreal. He is the author of Discrimination in the NHL, Quebec Hockey Players Sidelined.

Carolyn Marie Souaid is the author of the novel Yasmeen Haddad Loves Joanasi Maqaittik as well as seven books of poetry. Born and raised in Montreal, she has read and performed her work in Canada, the United States and Europe. Her poems and stories have appeared in magazines including The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, and the Literary Review of Canada, and have been featured on CBC Radio. In 2012, she was awarded a top prize at the Zebra International Poetry Film Festival in Berlin.

Cordelia Strube is a playwright and the author of nine critically acclaimed novels, including Alex and Zee, Teaching Pigs to Sing, and Lemon.  Winner of the CBC literary competition, she has been nominated for the Governor General’s Award, the Trillium Book Award, the SmithBooks in Canada First Novel Award and long-listed for The Giller Prize.  A three-time nominee for the ReLit Award, she has been leading writing workshops at Ryerson University since 2000. She is co-author with Barry Healey of Exhilarating Prose.

Vincent Thibault is a writer and cofounder of the Académie québécoise d’art du déplacement. He teaches and has led workshops locally in Quebec and internationally. He is the author of several books in French including both fiction and nonfiction. He is the author of Parkour and the Art du déplacement, Force, Dignity, Community.

Denis Vaugeois is a historian, a publisher, and the author of many books on North American and European history, including America: The Lewis & Clark Expedition and the Dawn of a New Power and Mapping a Continent. He is also Quebec’s former minister of cultural affairs. He lives in Quebec City. Denis Vaugeois is the author of The First Jews in North America, The Extraordinary Story of the Hart Family, 1760-1860 and co-author with Käthe Roth of America’s Gift, What the World Owes to the Americas and Their First Inhabitants.

Jean-Pierre Wilhelmy is a Montreal historian who discovered a major unexplored part of Canadian and American history. He has also written three historical novels based on his research. He is the author of Soldiers for Sale, German “Mercenaries” with the British in Canada During the American Revolution 1776-83.

Translators

Arielle Aaronson was born in the United States and holds university language and translation degrees from Tufts, Concordia and McGill. Now living in Montreal, she works as a language professional in cinema, education, and literary translation. Arielle translated 21 Days in October a YA novel by Magali Favre.

Peter McCambridge is a full-time, award-winning literary translator. Originally from Ireland, Peter holds a BA in modern languages from Cambridge University, England, and wrote a dissertation of the Montréal Canadiens and popular culture in Québec. He has lived in Québec City with his family for ten years. He founded and heads the Québec Reads webzine. For Baraka Books, Peter has translated The History of Montréal: The Story of a Great North American City, The Orphanage, The Adventures of Radisson 1 & 2, and I Hate Hockey. 

Casey Roberts won the John Glassco Prize awarded by the Canadian Literary Translators Association for his translation of the YA novel Break Away, Jessie on My Mind. He lives in Montreal. For Baraka Books, Casey Roberts translated Rebel Priest in the Time of Tyrants, Mission to Haiti, Ecuador, and Chile, the YA Break Away series, vol. 1 Jessie on My Mind and vol. 2 Power Forward, and Dying to Live, A Rwandan Family’s Five-Year Flight Across the Congo.