Talonbooks imprint: 174 books

In The World Afloat, a series of seventy-five “miniatures” that melds narrative with elements of prose poem and farce, master of the absurd and expert observer M.A.C. Farrant peers into the complexities of human experience – through the rear window.Inside the linoleum-lined kitchens and lace-trimmed...

Following the accidental death of his lover, and in the throes of his grief, urban ad executive Tom travels to the country to attend the funeral and to meet his mother-in-law, Agatha, and her son, Francis – neither of whom know Tom even exists. Arriving at the remote rural farm, and immediately drawn...

Is an artist born, or rather, created by experience? From the moment in childhood when he is forced to take drastic action to defend his adoptive mother from a violent assault – the only maternal figure that he has ever known – it is evident that the life of Joseph Sully-Jacques is to be no ordinary...

In this contemplative novel-poem, Jean-François Beauchemin invites us to share in the inner world of the grieving Mr. Bartolomé, who, following the mysterious disappearance of his young son, wanders and wonders, seeking to transcend his pain by encountering something larger than himself. Continuously...

For the Pleasure of Seeing Her Again is Tremblay’s homage to his mother, who nurtured his imagination, his reclusive reading habits and his love for the theatre and the arts, yet who did not live to witness the performance of Les Belles Soeurs-the first successful play written in joual with which Tremblay...

In this fast-paced, sophisticated and hilarious play, a man contemplating suicide on a seventh-storey building ledge confronts the stories of the people who live inside the building. These “seven stories” lead to a charming and surprising ending.Cast of 2 women and 3 men.

Steve Galluccio's newest stage triumph, In Piazza San Domenico, is a comedy of errors that takes place in a bustling neighbourhood of 1952 Naples. This two-act play recounts the story of how one broken engagement ripples throughout friends and family, affecting all of their respective love...

The asocial, sexually repressed Edgar, kneeling in grief at his mother’s graveside, turns abruptly to witness a terrifying and life-altering event: the brutal rape of a young woman. Compelled by muddled instinct (and ingrained religious conviction), our hero bears the unconscious victim home, solemnly...

From one of the most exciting novelists writing in France today comes this literary saga of a dozen men and women – engineers, designers, machinery operators, cable riggers – all employees of the international consortium charged with building a bridge somewhere in a mythical and fantastic California. Told...

Sixteen-year-old Miles has run away from home, inviting his childhood companion, the fourteen-year-old Inuit orphan Chateaugué, to join him in a rented flat opposite Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours in Montreal. There they construct a chaste life for themselves, living as brother and sister. They spend their...

In Michel Tremblay’s classic play about identity in crisis, Claude leaves the conformity of small-town Quebec to realize a new life and a new persona among the drag queens and prostitutes of Montreal’s seedy “Main” – the boulevard that marks the division of the city’s anglophone and francophone...

This brilliant collection of satirical short stories explores the evolving corporate construction of reality in the media and information age.

Like many outgoing young women, Fatima feels rebellious against parents she sees as strict. It just so happens that she is Egyptian-born and wears a hijab. When anti-Muslim graffiti appears on the walls of her school, Fatima transfers to a new school. The guidance counsellor there, Mr. E., does his...

All Is Flesh collects in one volume Hugh Hazelton’s English translations of Yannick Renaud’s brilliant first two books of poems, Taxidermy and The Disappearance of Ideas, first published by Éditions Les Herbes rouges in Montreal. Taxidermy is a discourse on time consisting of prose poems...