GOING TOO FAR, ESSAYS ABOUT AMERICA’S NERVOUS BREAKDOWN by Ishmael Reed: Available, Ebook and tradepaper ($19.95)

“Reed’s tendency to go too far has not diminished.”—Paul Devlin, The San Francisco Chronicle

“A courageous American man of letters, one who, if he lived in most places in the world, would be a martyr by now.”—Hakim Hasan, The San Francisco Chronicle

Ishmael Reed will be in Montreal October 12-14 to launch Going Too Far. Details on the launch will be available soon.

“Ishmael Reed is a buzz-saw. He ambushes arguments from ever-unpredictable angles forcing the rest of us, whatever our politics, to acknowledge not just his passion but the fierceness of his intellect.”  Trey Ellis, author of Platitudes, Home Repairs, and “The New Black Aesthetic.”

“Just when you think that Reed is exaggerating, or being one-dimensional in his analysis of racial issues, he’ll open another page of American history and show you something new.”

David Homel, Montreal, Rover Arts

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THE ORPHANAGE by Richard Bergeron (translated by Peter McCambridge):  Available , Ebook and tradepaper ($12,95)

“I was a big boy. Soon, I would be four years old. The four of us—the four oldest—were in the back seat of our father’s car. The baby was just six months old. He wasn’t with us. (…) everything felt heavy and sad. We could feel it from the back seat. We didn’t dare move, didn’t dare open our mouths. But where were we going anyway? They must have told us, the older children, but we didn’t understand…

“As in all concentration-camp systems,” recalls Richard Bergeron in this short but moving story, daily life was dull and repetitive. Sometimes for some people it’s fun, or at least tolerable. For others, it is unbearable. But this tale does not settle old scores or vent bitterness, it simply recounts how Richard Bergeron began the rest of his life.
Richard Bergeron is an architect and city planner and a Montreal City Councillor. He leads Projet Montréal.

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SLOUCHING TOWARDS SIRTE, NATO’S WAR ON LIBYA AND AFRICA by Maximilian Forte, November 10; Ebook and tradepaper, 320 pp ($27.95) Special Pre-order discount: $20 til Nov. 20; buy now

AVAILABLE OCTOBER 21

NATO’s war in Libya was proclaimed as a humanitarian intervention—bombing in the name of “saving lives.” Attempts at diplomacy were stifled. Peace talks were subverted. Libya was barred from representing itself at the UN, where shadowy NGOs and “human rights” groups held full sway in propagating exaggerations, outright falsehoods, and racial fear mongering that served to sanction atrocities and ethnic cleansing in the name of democracy. The rush to war was far speedier than Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

Max Forte has scrutinized the documentary history from before, during, and after the war. He argues that it was not about human rights, nor entirely about oil, but about a larger process of militarizing U.S. relations with Africa. The development of the Pentagon’s AFRICOM is seen to be in competition with Pan-Africanist initiatives such as those spearheaded by Muammar Gaddafi.

Far from the success NATO boasts about or the “high watermark” proclaimed by proponents of the “Responsibility to Protect,” this war has left the once prosperous, independent and defiant Libya in ruin, dependency and prolonged civil strife.

Maximilian C. Forte is Associate Professor of Anthropology at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec.

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WASHIKA, A Novel, by Robert A. Poirier, November 8; Ebook and tradepaper ($24.95)

It’s summer sometime in the ’60s. Twenty-one testosterone-drenched high school graduates are bussed into Washika Bay, a Company logging camp where they will work for the summer. Idealistic, confident, sometimes troubled, they meet their matches in tough older bush workers, a devastating forest fire, sand flies and leeches, and occasionally beautiful young women, especially on weekends in their hometown. Henri Morin is particularly sensitive and, though a hard worker, he appears to harbour dark thoughts. Washika Bay has a profound effect on him. In no other place could the transition from adolescence to adulthood be the same.

Robert Poirier has created characters that readers will never forget, and through them and their experiences, he has revived an era and inspired new life into a wild and beautiful place.

Robert A. Poirier runs a wild animal rehabilitation centre, treating and caring for all species of fauna. Previously, he cofounded an ambulance cooperative and taught high school science. Fluent in English and French, he now studying Algonquin and has embraced Anishinabeg spiritual practices. He lives on his land near Maniwaki, Quebec.

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THE ADVENTURES OF RADISSON 1, HELL NEVER BURNS, by Martin Fournier (translated by Peter McCambridge): November 15; Ebook and tradepaper ($19.95)

Spring 1651: a young man from Paris lands in Trois-Rivières on the St. Lawrence River. Within weeks, the course of his life changes dramatically when Iroquois braves capture him. Pierre-Esprit Radisson, then only fifteen years old, begins a new life. Canoeing across rivers and lakes and portaging over mountains, Radisson’s captors take him to distant lands where first they torture him, then adopt him as a brother.

In this first tome of the adventures of North America’s most famous coureur des bois, readers voyage into the heart of a continent’s history in an era of bravery and heroism. Newcomers from France and indigen­ous peoples meet, sometimes as friends and allies, sometimes as bitter enemies. Martin Fournier brings to bear his impassioned story-telling skills and historian’s rigour to produce a novel that is a thrilling read from start to finish.

“Ganaha, the kindly Iroquois who was in a way his personal protector saw to it that he came to no harm. Though he believed his odds of survival to be slim indeed, hope again began to stir in his heart. On the morning of the fourth day, Ganaha painted half of Radisson’s face red and the other half black. Then, his captors clambered back into their canoes and paddled south, along a broad river. (…) his fate remained in the balance: black for death, red for life.”

Martin Fournier won the Governor General’s Award for the original French version of The Adventures of Radisson, 1. Both historian (PhD) and writer, he is Project Coordinator and Editor of the Encyclopedia of French Cultural Herit­age in North America. His nonfiction has focused on Radisson and day-to-day life in New France.

Baraka Books is proud to announce that eight titles in our catalogue can now be purchased as Ebooks (in all formats). More titles will be available soon.

The eight titles are:

A People’s History of Quebec by Jacques Lacoursière and Robin Philpot Buy Ebook

Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media, The Return of the Nigger Breakers by Ishmael Reed Buy Ebook

An Independent Quebec, The Past, the Present and the Future by Jacques Parizeau Buy Ebook

Break Away, Jessie on My Mind by Sylvain Hotte (Translated by Casey Roberts) – Winner of the John Glassco Prize awarded by the Literary Translators’ Association of Canada Buy Ebook

Roads to Richmond, Portraits of Quebec’s Eastern Townships by Nick Fonda Buy Ebook

Discrimination in the NHL, Quebec Hockey Players Sidelined by Bob Sirois Buy Ebook

You could lose an eye, My first 80 years in Montreal by David Reich Buy Ebook

The Riot that Nevers Was, The military shooting of three Montrealers in 1832 and the official cover-up by James Jackson. Buy Ebook

Baraka Books is grateful for the support received from La SODEC for the conversion of books to Ebook Format

286 pp Trade paper 29.95 97819268241

INUIT AND WHALERS ON BAFFIN ISLAND THROUGH GERMAN EYES

Wilhelm Weike’s Arctic Journal and Letters (1883-84)
by Ludger Müller-Wille & Bernd Gieseking (Translated by William Barr)

Wilhelm Weike, a 23-year old ordinary handyman from Minden/Germany, accidentally found himself spending the year of 1883-84 among Inuit and wintering with whalers on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic. He was hired as servant to the fledgling scientist Franz Boas (1858-1942), later the eminent cultural anthropologist. During this sojourn Weike attended to and assisted Boas in his geographical and ethnological research following the first Polar Year of 1882-83. He kept a journal, a fascinating text and the longest he would ever write in his life, an exceptional piece of working-class literature.

This common man with basic education wrote a unique account of meeting and interacting with Inuit in a remote world totally alien to him. He keenly observes the life and habits of the Inuit, accepting them as equals and exhibiting no cultural arrogance. His journal provides an unusual historical glimpse of the human condition in the Arctic in the late nineteenth century. It complements the journals that Boas wrote simultaneously. Müller-Wille and Gieseking edited and annotated Weike’s journal extensively and, in addition, present his biography and highlight his observations and contributions next to Boas’ scientific work.

In bookstores November 1

Ludger Müller-Wille (anthropologist/geographer, McGill University) has studied human conditions in the circumpolar North—in Finland with Sámi and Finns, in Canada with Inuit, Dene, and Naskapi. His previous book is Franz Boas among the Inuit of Baffin Island 1883-1884 (1998).

Bernd Gieseking is a writer, playwright, and stage and radio comedian who, Like Weike and Boas, is from Minden, Germany. His dramatization of Weike’s and Boas’ arctic sojourn, The Colour of Water, premiered in 2010.

William Barr is a senior research associate with the Arctic Institute of North America, University of Calgary. He has translated many books from French, German, and Russian on Arctic and Antarctic explorers and scientists, including the arctic journals of Franz Boas.

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278 pp $27.95 9781926824123

SOLDIERS FOR SALE

German “Mercenaries” with the British in Canada during the American Revolution (1776-83)

By Jean-Pierre Wilhelmy

The British Army that fought the American Revolutionaries was in fact an Anglo-German army. The British Crown had doubts about the willingness of English soldiers to fight against other English-speaking people in North America. It also doubted the loyalty of the Canadiens who had only just been taken over after the conquest of New France. It thus turned to the princes of German States, who were also relatives of England’s ruling family, to obtain troops. To the Americans, these soldiers are known as The Hessians. In return for large amounts of money, German princes and barons provided about 30,000 soldiers, of whom some 10,000 were located in Canada for up to seven years and 2,400 chose to remain in Canada after the war. Many were dragged unwillingly from their families and sent to fight in a war in which they had no interest. Those who remained in Canada represented close to five percent of the male population at the time. They melted into the French and English-speaking societies, their names were Gallicized or Anglicized, but their history was unknown until this book appeared, even to their own descendants.

Jean-Pierre Wilhelmy is a Montreal historian who, in the late 1970s, wanted to know where his ancestors came from and discovered a major unexplored part of Canadian history. He published his work in French originally in 1980s and has constantly updated it. He has also written two books of historical fiction based on his research. This updated English adaptation of his research is his first publication in English.

In bookstores in Canada, November 15 (March 2012 in the United States)

Jane Jacobs’ book THE QUESTION OF SEPARATISM, QUEBEC AND THE STRUGGLE OVER SOVEREIGNTY is finally back in print augmented by a previously unpublished 2005 interview with her and a new preface. Below are excerpts from a recent article published in Counterpunch.

Order now

Jane Jacobs, five years later

Troubling Silence on Jane Jacobs’ Writings on Nations and Separatism

By Robin Philpot *

Jane Jacobs passed away five years ago on April 25, 2006. She will be remembered for her matchless contribution to cities throughout the world.

Less remembered—sometimes belittled—is her work on nations, national sovereignty, and the relationship between cities and the development of nations. Yet her third and her forth books dealt specifically with these issues and, in light of the current election campaign in Canada, they are still very relevant. The Question of Separatism (1980) and Cities and the Wealth of Nations (1984) were published in the wake of her two seminal books on cities, The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961) and The Economy of Cities (1968), both written before she moved to Canada.

Nagging questions remain five years after her death? Why has the work of a leading thinker on the unfolding story of nations received so little attention? Why is the only book she wrote about her adopted country, The Question of Separatism, never discussed? Why, unlike her other six books, was it out of print for 25 years? How can 35 experts put together a 400-page anthology, What we see, Advancing the observations of Jane Jacobs (2010), without mentioning the book?

Jacobs answered these questions in part in an interview she granted me in 2005. She pointedly broke with her no-interview policy because this interview was to focus on her book The Question of Separatism, Quebec and the struggle over sovereignty, 25 years after it appeared and ten years after the 1995 Quebec referendum on sovereignty.

Asked if the media ever talked to her about her book on separatism, Jacobs replied, “No. Practically never! You’re the first.” Explaining the silence she added: “Don’t want to think about it… or engage in talking pros and cons and why people feel this way. It’s an unwelcome subject (…) It was fear that there would be no more identity for Canada, that it would disintegrate if Quebec were to separate. It was foolish because there are so many examples of separatism, and nothing has disintegrated, unless they went to war. There were over thirty of these cases in very recent times since the issue of Quebec was raised in 1980.”

As in her other books, Jane Jacobs brought to bear her renowned capacity to observe the real world, avoided ideology and sloganeering, and set forth practical win-win solutions. Using examples, particularly that of Norway and Sweden, she discussed the timeless issues that influence—or afflict—debate on separatism in the world, such as emotion, national size and paradoxes of size, duality and federation, and the relationship between competing urban centres.

Jacobs posited that large regional cities and the nations they drive require a degree of political sovereignty to develop successfully, failing which they become “passive and provincial,” relegated to the shadow of a dominant city region. That is what she so accurately predicted about Montreal and Toronto, a result of the “gathering force” of national centralization concentrated in her home city of Toronto. She added that the desire for Quebec sovereignty was not about to disappear, unless of course Montrealers—and Quebecers—were ready to resign themselves to being a satellite of the greater Toronto city region. Ever the pragmatist, Jane Jacobs also showed how all parties stand to gain from a new arrangement that respects the Quebec people’s will for sovereignty.

The actors have changed since 1980 but the script remains the same. The current stalemat would not have surprised Jane Jacobs, who stood behind her 1980 conclusions. When I asked her in 2005 if she would write the same book again, she smiled confidently, “Yes, not because it is in my head, but because that’s the way it is in the world, and it still holds.”

Five years after her death, hopefully we will benefit from her work on nations as much as we have from her work of cities.

* Robin Philpot is Montreal writer and publisher whose 2005 interview with Jane Jacobs is published in the new edition of The Question of Separatism, Quebec and the Struggle over Sovereignty (Baraka Books 2011)