Holiday Pop-Up Book Fair to feature a number of  Jewish authors

By Mike Cohen

Presented by the Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec (AELAQ) and the Quebec Writers’ Federation (QWF), the Holiday Pop-Up Book Fair invites booklovers to browse, buy and get books signed just in time for holiday gift-giving. There are hundreds of new titles including fiction, non-fiction, poetry, books for kids, award-winners and bestsellers, plus fun activities for all ages and acclaimed local authors. This free event takes place in the atrium of the McConnell Building (1400 de Maisonneuve W.) at Concordia University on Saturday Nov. 30 & Sunday Dec. 1.

There are a number of Jewish authors who will either be reading or in attendance at this great book fair.


— Dan Bilefsky is a journalist for the New York Times who has reported from cities around the world, including London, Paris, Brussels, Prague, and Istanbul. He is currently a Canada correspondent for the paper, based in Montreal. His book is The Last Job.
    Link to Dan’s book: https://wwnorton.com/books/9780393609516

— Endre Farkas was born in Hungary and is a child of Holocaust survivors. He and his parents escaped during the 1956 uprising and settled in Montreal. He is the author of eleven books, and is the two-time regional winner of the CBC Poetry “Face Off” Competition. His play, Haunted House, based on the life and work of the poet A.M. Klein, was produced in Montreal in 2009. Farkas has given readings throughout Canada, USA, Europe and Latin America. His poems have been translated into French and Spanish, Hungarian, Italian, Slovenian and Turkish.


— Amy Fish is the author of I WANTED FRIES WITH THAT: How to Ask for What You Want and Get You Need (New World Library) and the Chief Complaints Officer, also known as the Ombudsperson, at Concordia University.


— Jonathan Kaplansky studied at Tufts University and received his MA in French Language and Literature from McGill and MA in Translation at the University of Ottawa. He has translated works by Hélène Rioux, Hélène Dorion and Annie Ernaux. Originally from New Brunswick, he currently lives in Montreal.


— Mother and daughter Holly Klein and Nicola Klein’s new children’s book Turtles in Girdles, is a rhyming tale that follows 3 sea turtles on a misadventure which almost brings them to their doom! Meet sly cephalopods, a couple of skittish seahorses and a wise old whale along the way. Children will discover their green superpowers and learn how they can use them to help save the oceans.

— Sean Michaels is a novelist, short story writer and critic. Born in Stirling, Scotland and raised in Ottawa, he eventually settled in Montreal, where he founded the pioneering music blog Said the Gramophone. His debut novel, Us Conductors, received the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the QWF Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, and was nominated for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the Kirkus Prize, the International Dublin Literary Award and (in translation) the Prix des libraires de Québec. His second novel, The Wagers, appeared in 2019.

— Vivianne Silver’s The 42 Keys to the Second Exodus is the memoir of a woman who was a member of the last generation of Jews to have lived in Egypt before the Suez Crisis of 1956. In her story, Vivianne M. Schinasi-Silver bears witness to her ancestry, describing the landscape of Jewish life during Egypt’s “golden era” in that community.

— Sherry Simon is a Professor in the Department of French Studies at Concordia University. She has also held the position of Canada Research Chair in Translation and Cultural History (York University, 2005) and served as Director of Concordia’s interdisciplinary PhD in Humanities Program. An internationally renowned scholar, Professor Simon has published extensively on subjects related to Translation Studies, literary translation, and gender in translation, among others.


— Ken Victor — Traversing the world from the Garden of Eden to a grandmother asking what’s a tweet, We Were Like Everyone Else explores the daily humanity of family, the folly of our politics, and a natural world that seems to offer the promise of consolation but never quite does. In poems both lyrical and narrative, the possibility of violence is never far off, but the same can be said of love, our capacity to endure, our hunger for healing and redemption.    …

For Anna Leventhal, AELAQ Executive Director, the Fair’s fifth anniversary is a significant milestone. “It’s been amazing to see the Fair grow to a two-day event, with nonstop readings and multiple events. It’s about celebrating our vibrant literary scene, bringing writers, publishers, translators and the public together.” QWF Executive Director Lori Schubert says, “This is a rare occasion for readers to see the year’s impressive output by Quebec’s writers in English, and meet so many of those writers.”

Bibliophiles are encouraged to browse diverse genres, including novels, history, fantasy, mysteries and graphic novels. From Véhicule Press’ Simon Dardick, “The Holiday Pop-Up Book Fair is exciting because we get to meet the folks who are interested in what we publish.” He joins a dozen other local publishers, including DC Books, Linda Leith Publishing, Baraka Books/QC Fiction, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Metonymy Press, The Secret Mountain, and Pow Pow Press; Paragraphe Bookstore will sell Quebec authors’ books published outside the province.

There is no charge.