Price of booksellers | Dominique Scali and Marie-Hélène Voyer rewarded

This is the novel by Dominique Scali Sailors can’t swim who won the Prix des libraires in the Quebec novel-short story-narrative category, Thursday evening at Club Soda, while Marie-Hélène Voyer was rewarded in two categories – a first in the history of the Prize – for her essay The habit of ruins and his collection of poetry Chickweed.

“There are moments in writing this book when I said to myself: come on, I’m crazy! It was such an impossible mission as a project… In the end, I was right to believe that it was worth going a little crazy to get there, ”says Dominique Scali, rejoicing at this award.

Published last fall in La Peuplade, Sailors can’t swim is camped in the XVIII^e century, on a fictional island in the middle of the Atlantic, and takes us in the wake of an orphan who answers the call of the sea. The author reveals that it took her more than five years to write this second novel.

“Basically, it was a bit like a fascination, a curiosity for everything to do with the sea and navigation,” she says. It was really a literary trip and an imaginary trip. »

Two awards for Marie-Hélène Voyer

For her part, literature professor and poet Marie-Hélène Voyer won the booksellers’ vote in two different categories (essay and poetry), which had never happened before.

His two books – The habit of ruins (published by Lux publisher) and Chickweed (at La Peuplade) – are in a way her “two-headed beast”, she underlines.

This second collection of poetry, confides Marie-Hélène Voyer, is a form of reconciliation with the maternal figure since the common thread is her own mother, swept away by depression fifteen years ago. “She would see me writing in my diaries or in my notebooks, and she would say to me, ‘Anything you write can be used against you.’ She said it jokingly; in spite of everything, there was on his part a concern to see me write. The circle of mourning is undoubtedly complete with this beautiful and immense recognition from Quebec booksellers. »

In his test The habit of ruins, she evokes in a different way this Quebec hinterland which, in her opinion, is little talked about – “rural, modest, uneventful” – and in which she grew up. A text nourished by the stories of her father and her grandfather and which, she specifies, is intended to be a plea for the modest beauty of our landscapes and our architecture.

These prizes, notes Marie-Hélène Voyer, are added to the other “good news” which has just arrived around the two books, since Chickweed will be adapted for the theater by Catherine de Léan, while documentary filmmakers have surveyed her to continue the reflection that unfolds in The habit of ruins.

Prizes in six categories

In the Quebec comics category, booksellers chose Sometimes the lakes burnthe first album by Geneviève Bigué (published by Front Froid) which also won the Booksellers’ Prize in the youth comic section, last February.

Two foreign titles were also rewarded: The gray beesby Andrei Kurkov (Liana Levi), in the novel-short story-narrative category, and Dry cleaningby Joris Mertens (Rue de Sèvres), in comics.

The Prix d’excellence from the Association des libraires du Québec, which rewards a bookseller for his or her exceptional work, was also awarded to Éliane Ste-Marie, from the Exèdre bookstore in Trois-Rivières. This award comes with a $2,000 grant from Quebec’s Minister of Culture and Communications, Mathieu Lacombe.

Since 1994, the Prix des libraires du Québec has rewarded titles chosen by booksellers from across the province. A $10,000 scholarship was awarded by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec to the winner of the Quebec novel-short stories-narrative category, while the prize in the Quebec essay category comes with a $5,000 scholarship. $ from the Montreal Arts Council. A $3,000 scholarship is also offered to winners of the Quebec poetry and Quebec comics categories by the Association des libraires du Québec.