" Richly engaging . . . Skilfully translated by David Homel - Michael Arditti, Spectator "A touching tale of a beleaguered dreamer . . . Lightness balanced by glints of harsh realism, a combination captured perfectly in David Homel's translation" - Financial Times ***WINNER OF THE PRIX GONCOURT*** Paul Hansen is in prison. He's been in prison for a couple of years now, sharing a cell with a huge Hells Angel with a fear of mice and an intense love of Harley Davidsons, who often reminds Paul that he could kill him at any moment. But life wasn't always like this. Before prison, there were his parents: Danish pastor Johannes and free-spirited Anna, the proprietor of a controversial art house cinema in Toulouse. There were his friends in the Excelsior, the block of luxury flats where Paul worked officially as a caretaker, and unofficially as a restorer of souls. And above all, there was his partner, Winona, a daring seaplane pilot, and their beloved dog Nouk. Many of them are dead now: his parents, his friends, Winona and Nouk. Paul can still talk to them though; they appear in his dreams, as ghosts in his cell, breaking up the monotony and fear of his life behind bars. But Paul knows he cannot be released until he shows remorse for the crime that led to his imprisonment. And, even with his freedom at stake, for some things, true remorse is too high a price to pay. . . Translated from the French by David Homel

Even for an experienced traveler like Charlie, Cuba is a place unlike any he has visited before - an island full of surprises, secrets and puzzling contradictions. When Charlie's artist mother is invited to visit a school in Cuba, the whole family goes along on the trip. But the island they discover is a far cry from the all-inclusive resorts that Charlie has heard his friends talk about. Charlie has never visited a country as strange and puzzling as Cuba - a country where he often feels like a time traveler. Where Havana's grand Hotel Nacional sits next to buildings that seem to be crumbling before his very eyes. Where the streets are filled with empty storefronts and packs of wild dogs, but where flowers and sherbet-colored houses may lie around the next corner, and music is everywhere. Where there are many different kinds of walls - from Havana's famous sea wall to the invisible ones that seem aimed at keeping tourists and locals apart. Then the family heads "off the beaten track," traveling by hot, dusty bus to Vinales, where Charlie makes friends with Lazaro, who often flies from Miami to visit his Cuban relatives. The boys ride a horse bareback, find a secret cache of rifles inside a little green mountain and go swimming with small albino fish in an underground cave. A rent-a-wreck takes the family into the countryside, where they find an abandoned hotel inhabited by goats, and a modern resort filled with tourists. And as he goes from one strange and marvelous escapade to another, Charlie finds that his expectations about a place and its people are overturned again and again. Key Text Features illustrations Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.6 Describe how a narrator's or speaker's point of view influences how events are described.

"An affecting meditation on loss and exile" ANGEL GURRIA-QUINTANA, Financial Times Windsor Laferriere left Haiti in fear of his life. He has lived in Montreal for thirty-three years, and when his father dies in New York, himself an exile for half a century, Windsor travels there to attend the funeral, and then back to Haiti to inform his mother of the death. In Haiti, Windsor is faced with the grim truth of life in his homeland - the endemic poverty, the thwarted ambitions and broken dreams. But only here can he become a writer again . . . The Enigma of the Return lives where fiction, poetry and autobiography meet. These creative tensions sustain a narrative of astonishing beauty, clarity and insight. "Looks set to become one of the great poetic statements of homesickness and return . . . It should be read by all exiles everywhere" Ian Thomson, Independent "A poetic, melancholic tour de force . . . a compelling, intense, stark and poignant exploration of living life as an outsider . . . The great Haitian novel" Jo Lateu, New Internationalist

Husband-and-wife team Marie-Louise Gay and David Homel create a sequel to the enormously popular Travels with My Family and On the Road Again! - but with a twist. This time Charlie and his family stay home, and find adventure in their own Montreal neighborhood. Charlie can't wait for school to be over. But he's wondering what particular vacation ordeal his parents have lined up for the family this summer. Canoeing with alligators in Okefenokee? Getting caught in the middle of a revolutionary shootout in Mexico? Or perhaps another trip abroad? Turns out, this summer the family is staying put, in their hometown. Montreal, Canada. A "staycation," his parents call it. Charlie is doubtful at first but, ever resourceful, decides that there may be adventures and profit to be had in his own neighborhood. And there are. A campout in the backyard brings him in contact with more than one kind of wildlife, a sudden summer storm floods the expressway, various pet-sitting gigs turn almost-disastrous, and a baseball game goes awry when various intruders storm the infield - from would-be medieval knights and an over-eager ice-cream vendor to a fly-ball-catching Doberman. Then of course there's looking after his little brother, Max, who is always a catastrophe-in-the-making. Key Text Features illustrations key text features Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.3.9 Compare and contrast the themes, settings, and plots of stories written by the same author about the same or similar characters (e.g., in books from a series).

Marie-Louise Gay and David Homel combine their writing and illustrating talents with their own family memories to produce a very unique travelogue. Family vacations are supposed to be something to look forward to. Unless, that is, your parents have a habit of turning every outing into a risky proposition -- by accident, of course. So instead of dream vacations to Disney World and motels with swimming pools, these parents are always looking for that out-of-the-way destination where other tourists don't go. Their adventures involve eating grasshoppers in Mexico, forgetting the tide schedule while collecting sand dollars off the coast of Georgia, and mistaking alligators for logs in the middle of Okefenokee Swamp. Travels with My Family is told from the point of view of a long-suffering big brother who must fulfill many roles in this eccentric family: keep little brother out of trouble, humor artist Mom, and discourage Dad from pulling out the road map to search for yet another off-the-beaten-track destination. Husband-and-wife team Marie-Louise Gay and David Homel and have combined their prodigious writing and illustrating talents with their own family memories to produce a very different travelogue. Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language Arts: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.2.1 Ask and answer such questions as who, what, where, when, why, and how to demonstrate understanding of key details in a text. CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.3 Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character's thoughts, words, or actions).

Brilliant and tense, Dany Laferriere's first novel, How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired, is as fresh and relevant today as when it was first published in Canada in 1985. With ribald humor and a working-class intellectualism on par with Charles Bukowski's or Henry Miller's, Laferriere's narrator wanders the streets and slums of Montreal, has sex with white women, and writes a book to save his life. With this novel, Laferriere began a series of internationally acclaimed social and political novels about the love of the world, and the world of sex, including Heading South and I Am a Japanese Writer. It launched Laferriere as one of the literary world's finest provocateurs and continues to draw strong comparisons to the writings of James Baldwin, Henry Miller, Charles Bukowski, and Jack Kerouac. The book was made into a feature film and translated into several languages -- this is the first U.S. edition.