Arrived in Montreal in 1952, at the age of 23, the Bosnian publisher and poet Alain Horic quickly established himself in the Quebec literary world, in particular by becoming a close collaborator of Gaston Miron (1928-1996), who he met through Andrée Maillet, published by French publishers.
In 1961, he joined Miron, Paul-Marie Lapointe, Louis Portuguese and Michel van Schendel at the direction of this house initially dedicated to poetry. From 1964, Miron and Horic are the only directors.
From 1981, when Miron retired, Horic held the reins alone until its sale to Sogides in 1991, then headed the publishing committee from 1991 to 1996. He also replaced Gérald Godin at the review bias when the latter had made the leap into politics in 1976 and contributed, still with Gaston Miron, to the founding of Herbes Rouges, the publishing house of François and Marcel Hébert, in 1978.
The obstacle course
Born on January 3, 1929 in the village of Kulen Vakuf, today in present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina, to merchant parents, Alain Horic was 16 when he left his country to join the Foreign Legion, just after the Second World War. . Deployed in Indochina, the one who learned French during his classical course obtained the rank of corporal at the school of non-commissioned officers. Subsequently, he was sent to the Marseille depot and obtained his French citizenship.
In March 1951, he moved to Paris where he was hired at the Citroën factory, and became a free student at the Sorbonne. It was at this time that he discovered trade unionism while he was a union representative and editor of the newspaper Wherecroatian worker. In February 1952, he immigrated to Quebec and worked as a clerk at Dupuis Frères; when the strike broke out, he met Michel Chartrand, who introduced him to Michel Rivard, father of Jacqueline Rivard whom he married in December of the same year and with whom he had four children.
Supplementing his income by selling his poems in specialized magazines and newspapers, he followed various training courses before obtaining a master’s degree in Slavic literature at the University of Montreal. In parallel with his career as a publisher, he published a few collections of poetry, including Dawn murdered (Erta, 1957), Wound on the side of the sky (L’Hexagone, 1962) and Slaughtered roosters (The Hexagon, 1972).
With Paul Chamberland, France Théoret, his second wife whom he divorced in the 2000s, and Pierre Vallières, he signed Bosnia is watching us (Free Quarter Publications, 1995). In addition, Horic participated in the formation of the Quebec/Bosnia Solidarity Committee, active from 1992 to 1996.
In the shadow of Miron
In 2004, Alain Horic published My journey as an editor with Gaston Miron (L’Hexagone), “where sometimes floats a slight smell of settling of accounts” and “often takes on the appearance of fussy minutes”, as Christian Desmeules noted in our pages.
In 2012, a year after the publication of the biography Gaston Miron — The Life of a Man, Alain Horic sued author Pierre Nepveu and Éditions du Boréal for damage to his reputation, in addition to claiming $500,000. According to him, the biographer portrayed him “as a wheeler-dealer and belligerent person who took advantage of Miron’s friendship and naivety”.
In 2016, judge Chantal Chatelain concluded that “the historical interpretation proposed by Pierre Nepveu of the life of Gaston Miron does not contain any defamatory remarks with regard to Alain Horic”. The following year, Alain Horic withdrew his request to the Court of Appeal against the judgment of the Superior Court to preserve his health. Having retired from publishing for thirty years, the man of letters died on July 21, 2022.