Quebec literature undoubtedly has wind in its sails. In addition to the fact that Quebec will be in the spotlight at the Paris Book Festival next April, another piece of good news was announced Thursday evening at the opening of the Outaouais Book Fair: the province of La Belle will be the guest of honor at the Gothenburg Book Fair there in 2026.
Published yesterday at 6:30 p.m.
Although few people other than fans of Scandinavian thrillers can locate Gothenburg on a map, the Swedish city still hosts Europe's second-largest book fair every year, after the Frankfurt Book Fair, where Canada was in the spotlight in 2021.
“It is the largest cultural event in the Nordic countries. It's really huge. We receive between 80,000 and 90,000 visitors over four days,” emphasized Oskar Ekström, program director of the fair, who was in Quebec this week for the announcement with Director General Frida Edman. By comparison, the Montreal Book Fair last November welcomed almost 88,000 visitors for five days.
The Gothenburg Book Fair takes place every year in the last week of September. And if the announcement was made more than two years in advance, it should give players in the field time to prepare, explains Geneviève Pigeon, president of the board of the National Association of Publishers of Books (ANEL) and also general director of the publishing house L'instant soi.
Translation mission
“This deadline gives us time to conduct reconnaissance missions and plan a good plan of attack so that the event reaches its full potential. The idea is that in an ideal world we will arrive in 2026 with a certain number of translations, that the Swedish public will be able to read books from Quebec, and that this will serve as a springboard for us to translate even more “, she explains.
To date, a number of Quebec authors have already been translated into Swedish, including Kim Thúy, who enjoyed great public and critical success in the country by Henning Mankell, Lise Tremblay and, more recently, Dominique Fortier, Catherine Mavrikakis, Jocelyne Saucier and Larry Tremblay.
The fact is that, according to ANEL, numerous authors translated into English, German or Spanish, such as Naomi Fontaine, Michel Jean and Christian Guay-Poliquin, could also achieve great success with Swedish readers.
Especially since a translation into Swedish could open the door to other Scandinavian languages, the event attracted publishers from all Nordic countries.
“As an editor,” intervenes Geneviève Pigeon, “I have authors who have been translated into three, four, five languages, but Swedish is not there yet.” And it is certain: when we meet a foreign publisher with a book, that has already been translated into several languages, this in a sense proves its universality and its ability to reach a foreign audience. This means it's a great opportunity for us to meet publishers we might not otherwise meet. »
Sweden and the Scandinavian countries also represent a large readership, notes Frida Edman, general director of the Gothenburg Book Fair. “People read a lot and are interested in all kinds of literature – thrillers, feel-good novels, poetry… And the publishing world in Quebec is very dynamic.” In addition, I believe that our readers will recognize themselves in the stories of Quebec, because as in In our country, nature is very present there and we have a lot in common,” she concludes.