The Greater Sudbury Book Fair is back in person

The traffic was high during the first day. A large number of people were on hand to meet the sixty or so authors who came from across the country.

The General Manager of the Greater Sudbury Book Fair, Geneviève Leblanc, points out that this is the first in-person fair since 2018. She hopes that everyone will come out happy, happy to have participated in an inclusive activity.

According to her, there is nothing better than going from a virtual format, which was used in 2020, to a weekend of in-person activities.

It is not done, book in virtual. This is done by browsing book kiosks, talking to booksellers for recommendations and talking to authors to be inspired in our book purchases.says Ms. Leblanc.

Young people are there this year, especially during the first days of the show. Already, more than a hundred students from schools in the region have been able to spend a few hours at Place des Arts. The programming, which has as its theme Room for imagination and reunionsalso contains some activities for families.

We hope everything will go well. The important thing is that we have fun and that we take advantage of this presence of thousands of poundsunderlines the general manager.

Comic book author and illustrator Tristan Demers will present a drawing workshop on Saturday. He says he has missed 29 book fairs since the start of the pandemic.

We are very happy to have our readers back. Looks like we missed it. Yes, we produced a lot. I was at my drawing board, but I was bored of peoplehe raises.

A former headmistress, Jeannine Piette, is delighted to be able to attend the Salon again.

We couldn’t wait to come back in person, even if we have to wear our masks to protect ourselves. It is worth seeing the books. It’s also good to see the authors and have their signaturesshe notes.

Ms. Piette is even happier to finally be able to visit Sudbury’s Place des Arts, which opened its doors on April 29.

” It’s about time Sudbury had a place for all francophones to come together. The team did a great job. »

Culture in the foreground

Shortly before the opening ceremony on Thursday, Franco-Ontarian author Gaston Tremblay launched a new novel titled behind the stage curtainwhich recounts the creation of the play Me, I come from the North, s’tie in the early 1970s.

Among the guests of honor are Goncourt Prize finalist Edem Awumey and Sudbury author Chloé Laduchesse. She will also launch her black novel The Sudbury Arsonist.

Indigenous languages ​​will also have their place at the Salon du livre. Cree playwright, composer and musician Tomson Highway will perform a trilingual show on Friday evening in Cree, English and French, entitled Nagamoona.

Moreover, the sequence of Sudbury Talespublished twenty years ago, will be presented three years after its first public presentation in May 2019.

A good part of the programming is reserved for the writer Serge Bouchard, who died almost a year ago to the day at the age of 73. A round table was held on Thursday to discuss the impact of his twenty literary works relating in particular to the cultures of the First Nations and the traces they have left.

The show This is Serge Bouchard is also on schedule. The International Literature Festival, which is responsible for its creation, wanted to pay tribute to an unclassifiable writer, and certainly one of our most original prose writers.

With information from Bienvenu Senga