For close to four decades, Guernica Editions has published fine literature with a special understanding of different cultures. Guernica publishes fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and drama in English. More recently, Guernica has added some titles en français and has a longstanding relationship with the bilingual multicultural Montreal Blue Metropolis Festival.
This year Guernica hosted its spring launch at Librairie Paragraphe Bookstore the Official 2019 Blue MET Metropolis Bleu Festival Bookstore. Featured books and authors included Quill of the Dove by Ian Thomas Shaw, Seeker: A Sea Odyssey by Rita Pomade, The Afrikaner by Arianna Dagnino, Rivers Applaud Forever by Raymond Filip, Insult to the Brain by Nicola Vulpe, Plastic's Republic by Giovanna Riccio, and Revolt/Compassion: Six Scripts for Contemporary Performance by Michael Springate.
Guernica has published the works of a number of Montreal authors including two women who have put their own distinctive imprints on stories set in Montreal: playwright, journalist, fiction writer, and art critic Marianne Ackerman; and Mary Melfi, a poet, playwright, and novelist who has recently written a memoir on aging. Ackerman's most recent collection of stories Mankind & Other Stories of Women, with two stories set in literary Montreal, puts the focus on women, relationships, and the eternal yet ever-changing quest for self-definition in a post-modern world. Melfi's Via Roma: Between 2 Worlds, 2 Men explores the complex terrain of sex, relationships, and identity. The title says it all.
Co-director and President of Guernica Editions Connie Guzzo-McParland is another female Montreal author who has helped put Montreal on the international literary map. Guzzo-McParland's latest novel The Women of Saturn published by Inanna Publications is set in 1980 Montreal. This textured immigrant narrative chronicles the lives of three women of different generations trying to make sense of the past as they embrace present realities. While evoking the Italian Montreal of a bygone era this epic story shines a spotlight on the exhilarating period of Expo 67 when Montreal first stepped proudly onto the world stage.