Canada Reads / Le combat des livres
Canada Reads or Le combat des livres is a book contest organized and broadcast by the Canadian public broadcaster CBC . "Canada Reads" was first broadcast in English in 2002, followed by "Le combat des livres" in French in 2004, both language versions are broadcast separately and have their own book lists.
format
Five well-known personalities each present a book. The format lasts five episodes, with the jury “voting” one book per episode.
The candidates for the program are introduced months before the first broadcast. The participating books will be prominently displayed in Canadian libraries in the hope that the public will buy them more and read them before they air.
success
This strategy is very successful. Books that are already doing well get a boost in sales thanks to the program. Michael Ondaatje's book “In der Haut des Löwen”, for example, sold 80,000 times after it was included in the program.
But lesser-known books also benefit from the format; Sun sold about Jacques Poulins "Volkswagen Blues", sold by the otherwise approximately 200 issues per year, with 7500 Ex. in the year when it was presented at the "Canada Reads".
criticism
Criticism of the format of the program is directed against the presentation of celebrities, against the “game show” -like selection procedure and the sometimes superficial discussion of the books.
2019
- Anglophone competition
- Homes by Abu Bakr al Rabeeah and Winnie Yeung, Freehand Books
- Brother of David Chariandy , McClelland & Stewart
- By Chance Alone by Max Eisen, HarperCollins Canada. The "defender" Ziya Tong "won" the round with this book, a reminder of the author of his survival in the Holocaust .
- Suzanne by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, Coach House Books, translated from the French by Rhonda Mullins
- The Woo-Woo by Lindsay Wong, Arsenal Pulp Press
- Francophone competition
Both the books and their "defenders" at the beginning of May 2019 each stood for a region of Canada. The presenter was Marie-Louise Arsenault, the competition was broadcast as part of the weekday literary series Plus on est de fous, plus on lit! (The crazier you are, the more you read).
The Innu-born surgeon Stanley Vollant speaks for the First Nations , Inuit and Metis . He stands up for Naomi Fontaine's Manikanetish .
Deni Ellis Béchard represents Western Canada. He introduces Pauvres petits chagrins by Miriam Toews , the French translation of All My Puny Sorrows. The Radio Canada journalist Marie-Maude Denis stands for Ontario . She defends Sans capote ni kalachnikov from Blaise Ndala. The book won the elimination for 2019.
Manal Drissi stands for Quebec , she defends De synthèse by Karoline Georges. The book won the Governor General's Award for Fiction in 2018 in the French fiction category.
The Acadian singer Edith Butler introduces the regions of the East . She presents Pour sûr from France Daigle . This book won the Governor General's Award for Fiction in the French category in 2012. The 2013 English translation is For Sure .
The winner, Blaise Ndala, was determined through an online vote of all participating viewers.
In 2018, Katherena Vermette won Ligne brisée, the French translation of her novel The Break . The defense attorney was Naomi Fontaine.
Web links
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English
- French, here using the example from 2018: Katherena Vermette, Ligne brisée one of the 5 nominated books, "defended" by Naomi Fontaine. The French program does not have its own website and is accessed there via the search engine.
notes
- ↑ in Engl. , With reproduction of the broadcast
- ↑ In Romanian : Cu Pretul vieţii. O remarcabilă poveste adevărată despre curaj şi supravieţuire la Auschwitz. RAO Publishing House, Bucharest 2018 ISBN 9786060061366
- ↑ Monday to Friday at lunchtime, repeat broadcast on Tuesday to Saturday. The programs will be put online as a podcast 14 days after they were first broadcast .
- ↑ Source for the whole section, engl.
- ↑ The book has been available in German since summer 2019: Übers. Kathrin Razum , What happened that night. Berliner Taschenbuchverlag btb