(Photo by Idra Labrie)
Nikolski — Canada Reads 2010 winner
Join the CBC Book Club, where we'll be celebrating Nikolski's win with special features on the novel and author Nicolas Dickner.
About Nicolas Dickner
Nicolas Dickner's first novel, Nikolski , was published in 2005 to rave reviews and went on to win Quebec's most prestigious literary awards, including the Prix des libraires du Québec, the Prix littéraire des collegians and the Prix Anne-Hébert. It also won France's Prix Lavinal Printemps des lecteurs.
To date, Nikolski has been published in five languages and seven countries. The English translation, by Lazer Lederhendler, was published in 2008 and won the Governor General's Award for French-to-English translation.
After studying visual arts and literature at university, Nicolas travelled extensively in Europe and Latin America, then settled in Montreal, which continues to be his home base.
In 2000 he published his first book, a collection of short stories entitled L'encyclopédie du petit cercle, which won two awards, including the Prix Adrienne-Choquette, given annually to the best collection of short fiction in French by a Quebec author.
Nicolas is also the author of Boulevard Banquise, a children's book, and a second short story collection, Traité de balistique, both published in 2006. He is currently a literary columnist for the Montreal cultural weekly Voir and is working on his next novel.
About translator Lazer Lederhendler
Lazer Lederhendler's career as a literary translator spans more than 30 years. He has won two awards for his translation of Nikolski, the Governor General's Award for French-to-English translation in 2008 and the Quebec Writers' Federation translation prize in 2009.
He has also been nominated for the Governor General's Award three other times, for his translations of novels by Claire Dé (The Sparrow Has Cut the Day in Half), Pierre Tourangeau (Larry Volt) and Gaetan Soucy (The Immaculate Conception).
His translation of The Immaculate Conception was also shortlisted for the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and won the Quebec Writers' Federation Award in 2007.
Lazer's latest work — the translation of Pascale Quiviger's novel La Maison des temps rompus — is forthcoming from House of Anansi Press in 2010.
He lives in Montreal.
About Nikolski
Nikolski is a small village in the Aleutian Islands off the shore of Alaska. It is also a thematic connection for Nicolas Dickner's novel about three young francophones, unaware of the ties that bind them.
One is an unnamed young man who works in a secondhand bookshop and cherishes his only gift from his father, a broken compass that mysteriously points towards Nikolski.
Joyce, who comes from an Acadian family, is inspired by her grandfather's stories about the family history of sailors and pirates. She runs away to Montreal, where she finds a day job gutting fish and spends her nights dumpster diving for computer parts.
Noah spent the first 18 years of his life living as a nomad, roaming the roads of central Canada with his mother. He moves to Montreal to study archeology, and ends up writing a thesis on urban garbage.
Full of coincidences and paradoxes, the novel journeys across western Canada, spends time in an immigrant neighbourhood in Montreal and takes a side trip to Venezuela.
Nikolski was published in Quebec in 2005 and has since been garlanded with awards, including the Prix des libraries du Québec, the Prix littéraire des collegiens, the Prix Anne-Hebert for best first book, and France's Prix Printemps des Lecteurs — Lavinal.
Michel Vézina is defending Nikolski for Canada Reads.
Playlist
We asked Nicolas Dickner what music makes the perfect accompaniment to Nikolski. Here's what he had to say:
"Among the many albums I listened to during the year I spent in Germany, writing Nikolski, two albums by Leonard Cohen were especially important: I'm Your Man (1988) and The Best of Leonard Cohen (1975). I had bought those albums in a second-hand shop, thinking I was grown up enough to appreciate Cohen.
"The song Famous Blue Raincoat was a shock to me. I remember feeling hazy, thinking, 'Wow! This man can fit a whole novel in 20 verses!' All of a sudden, Nikolski's manuscript looked long and bloated. I threw it into the wastebasket, rushed out to the movie theatre, hit my head on a heavy glass door somewhere on the way, ended up at the hospital, and came back home with four stitches running through the ridge of my brow. I dug my manuscript out of the wastebasket and told myself to be a man and finish the book — but honestly, I don't think I have ever recovered from listening to Cohen's music."
Book Picks
We asked Nicolas Dickner for his favourite Canadian fiction. Here are the books he recommends, in both official languages.
Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler
Barney's Version is a unique work of character crafting: it's a wonder to see how Richler can create a character such as Barney Panofsky, who is both lovable and hateful. The author's storytelling is remarkable, making clever use of patterns and repetition, all the while subtly mixing tragedy and comedy.
Microserfs and JPod by Douglas Coupland
Ever since I read Douglas Coupland's first novel, I've been drawn to his idiosyncratic narrative language: his use of brand names, memes, slang, non-linear sentences. While Coupland is never afraid to experiment, his novels nevertheless remain classic pieces of storytelling. Two of my favourites were Microserfs (1992) and its sequel/variation/echo, JPod/ (2005). Reading both in a row is also a good way to remember how amazingly fast our technological culture changed in the space of less than 15 years.
Pattern Recognition by William Gibson
William Gibson is probably most known as science fiction writer and a pioneer of the cyberpunk movement. However, one of his latest novels, Pattern Recognition, is a powerful example of what an SF writer can achieve when looking at our present world, depicting it in a fascinating and unbalancing way. Overwhelmingly intelligent, and sharply written.
Je suis un écrivain japonais and L'Énigme du retour by Dany Laferrière
Written after a five-year hiatus, these two novels hold a special place in Laferrière's body of work. They're not only comeback novels, but a reinvention of the novelist's art. L'Énigme du retour is a marvel of narrative economy, at once dense, poetic and sober. The novel received an insane (and justified) amount of public attention.
Le soleil des gouffres by Louis Hamelin
This ambitious, hectic novel is a great illustration of the new continental consciousness that arose from the middle of the nineties, as well as of the apocalyptic anxiety we've been witnessing ever since. Hamelin's writing is excessive and challenging, but never obscure. A brilliant novel by one of our greatest fiction writers.
Books
 |
Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott published by Freehand Books |
 |
Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner, translated by Lazer Lederhendler published by Vintage/Random House of Canada |
 |
Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture by Douglas Coupland published by St. Martin's Press/H. B. Fenn and Company Defended by Roland Pemberton aka Cadence Weapon |
 |
The Jade Peony by Wayson Choy published by Douglas & McIntyre Defended by Samantha Nutt |
 |
Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald published by Vintage/Random House of Canada |
Cheer
 |
Are you cheering for Nikolski? Share your favourite book with a badge that proclaims which contender you're cheering for. |
Fun Facts
1. Nicolas Dickner's mother is one of 13 siblings, and his father is one of 16. Nicolas says there can easily be 300 people at intimate family gatherings.
2. In Nikolski, the narrator works at a second-hand bookstore called S. W. Gam — it's a nod to the Montreal literary landmark S. W. Welch Bookseller, which Nicolas says is his favourite spot in the city.
Contests
 |
|
Enter our weekly contests to win the Canada Reads books [More info...] |
