Written by Curtis Valasek, visiting scholar at the LLL

Several of the titles from Stanley Pean – one of our newly spotlighted Afro-Canadian, Francophone authors – fit nicely into the spooky season upon us, as Hallowe’en approaches. To think you could enrich your knowledge of French-Canadian literature, Black authors, and the horror genre at the same time in the collections curated by our Literatures & Languages Librarians. Allons-y for some chills & thrills from the Literatures & Languages Library (LLL).
Over the past weeks of the semester, our LLL has brought together one subcollection of works few other university French collections can brag about, Afro-Canadian, Francophone authors. These would be French-speaking (and writing) residents of Canada with African ancestry publishing fiction or poetry. Many have fascinating biographies with origins in Haiti, French-speaking Caribbean Islands, or West African countries, but now often navigate big city living in Montreal, North America’s largest French-speaking metropolitan area.

One such author, Stanley Pean, born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, actually grew up in the Quebecois city of Saguenay, becoming well-known for his voice on the airwaves of Radio-Canada, among many other media outlets (you can find his own webpage en français HERE). Writing both novels and short stories, he has developed a penchant for exploring the creepier, spookier side of fiction, many of them also in the mystery genre. These titles of his below might send shivers down your spine too!

Titles (linked to catalog record)

Bizango, Les Allusifs, 2011

Noirs désirs, Leméac, 1999

La Nuit démasque, Planète rebelle, 2000

Treize pas vers l’inconnu, Pierre Tisseyre, 1996

Le Tumulte de mon sang, Québec Amérique, 1991

Zombi Blues, La courte échelle, 1996

Afro-Canadian Francophone Literature