Les Allusifs’ Scandinavian List

Continuing with this special ‘theme week’ focusing on Scandinavian novels, today I’ll be looking at the covers of three Scandinavian titles published by Les Allusifs in recent months.

Les Allusifs are unique publishing house on the Canadian scene for three reasons:

• They are the only Canadian publisher whose output is almost entirely comprised of translations from foreign languages (they can be thought of as something like a French-Canadian version of the Harvill Press);
• They are the only Canadian publisher that I know of — besides perhaps Drawn and Quarterly (comics and graphic novels) and Les 400 coups (childen’s literature) — to sell more books abroad than at home (something like 85% of their sales are in Europe);
• They are the only Canadian publisher to have consistently excellent cover designs.

Obviously their output extends far beyond Scandinavian literature, but because of my own personal interests and for the purposes of this ‘theme week’, I’ve chosen to focus on Cochon d’Allemand by Knud Romer, La pasteure by Hanne Ørstavik and Honte et dignité by Dag Solstad. As futher evidence of the similarities between the Harvill Press and Les Allusifs, the latter title was published by both houses (Shyness and Dignity in English).

Cover design by Paprika, featuring illustrations/collages by Alain Pilon.

~ by Thomas on 2009-Jan-13.