Satin black
Stanley Péan
The new book of the prolific Stanley Paean is a salutary and fascinating spotlight on the destiny and career of around fifteen female jazz musicians who achieved glory before falling into oblivion. Pianists, singers, composers, trumpeters, they all in their own way and through their talent advanced the cause of the black American community in an artistic industry then led by men and racial discrimination. Great forgotten people who deserve recognition today. From Ma Rainey to Valaida Snow, including Hazel Scott, Mary Lou Williams and Lil Armstrong, wife of Satchmo, none of these shadowy personalities will be unknown to you after reading this book written by a true music enthusiast . Book whose publication coincides with Black History Month and which is aimed as much at jazz lovers as at all those interested in the history of women, particularly African-American women.
Boréal, February 6
The choice to remain silent
Stéphane Garneau
And why not choose voluntary silence in a society that encourages the hubbub of often useless words? This is what philosophically proposes Stéphane Garneau in the pages of this book where he praises a certain beneficial reserve against all the endless chatter which poisons the airwaves, the channels of our televisions and communications of all kinds. The journalist and columnist, more accustomed to offering us books on sport or children’s albums, reminds us that all the cacophony of our modern era only contributes, most of the time, to adding noise to the ambient din. The essay, the fruit, visibly, of a personal necessity to express a disenchantment with speaking, therefore makes room for silence, not the imposed one or which makes one mute and invisible, but rather the one which allows one to think, to think and listen. A silence that becomes presence, in short.
XYZ, March 14
Health Inc. Five myths and failures of the health system
Anne Plourde
Overcrowded emergency rooms, shortage of family doctors, increasingly long waiting lists and endless reforms: Quebec’s health system is in crisis. The presence of the private sector has also taken on more and more importance in Quebec, denounces Anne Plourde, postdoctoral researcher at York University and the Institute for Socio-Economic Research and Information (IRIS). If we are to believe the new essay by the author of Capitalism is bad for your health. A critical history of CLSCs and the Quebec socio-sanitary system, the private sector is not a panacea. As such, his essay debunks five stubborn myths often linked to the private sector, such as cost reductions, efficiency, unclogging of the public system or the quality of services. A necessary test at a time when the health sector is trying – once again – to define itself.
Ecosociety, March 19
When Quebec culture makes itself known to the world
Under the direction. by Denis Saint-Jacques, Marie-José des Rivières and Elizabeth Plourde
Quebec artists are exported to the four corners of the world, but what may seem ordinary or usual to us today nevertheless results from political decisions taken during the Quiet Revolution. The collective work recalls how Quebec acquired a so-called exportable culture in just a few decades. Writers, painters, singers, the world will discover the vitality of our culture, “French-Canadian” culture becoming “Québécois”. The essay also reviews the factors that have made this “exportable culture” a strong and lasting presence on the international scene in the fields of art and entertainment.
Alias, April 3
Rue Duplessis. My little darkness
Jean-Philippe Pleau
With Rue Duplessis. My little darkness, Jean-Philippe Pleau narrates his personal experience as an individual who experienced a change in social environment during his life. The author ofAtthought time hurry returns with intimate words on his journey, from childhood to adulthood, on the way in which poverty shaped his life as well as that of his family. The fate of the radio host, a sociologist by training, born to an illiterate father and a mother with little education, who grew up in Drummondville on rue Duplessis – hence the title of the work -, instantly brings to mind to that of the French writer Édouard Louis and his unforgettable Put an end to Eddy Bellegueule. Hypochondria, xenophobia, homophobia: the youth home is still haunted by the author’s fears. But far from being a bitter indictment, the essay is above all a love letter addressed to his parents, a love separated by a class distance.
Lux, April 4