Nicolas Dickner

SIX DEGRES DE LIBERTE

Lazer Lederhendler is no stranger to the GGs. Three of his works of translation have already been recognized as GG finalists - The Sparrow Has Cut the Day in Half by Claire Dé (1999), Larry Volt by Pierre Tourangeau (2002), and The Immaculate Conception by Gaétan Soucy (2006). The Immaculate Conception was also shortlisted for the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize and went on to win the 2007 Quebec Writers' Federation award for translation. This is his first Governor General's Award. Lazer Lederhendler's own writing has been published in a number of Canadian and Quebec journals. He lives in Montreal, and currently teaches translation at Université de Sherbrooke.

Mickey is your average teenage boy, until he meets 17 year old Hope Randall. Living in what was once an exotic pet shop with a bathtub for a bed, Hope is anything but average. For every member of her family, the onset of puberty seems to bring with it a prophetic vision of the world, which - when Armageddon fails to materialise - invariably tips the expectant prophet over the edge. So far, Hope is a late developer and has yet to receive her revelation. Instead, she picks a date at random, has it ''confirmed'' by the best-before date on a batch of ramen noodles, and begins to wait for the worst. In the meantime, Mickey is falling helplessly in love. But what kind of future can you have with someone who believes that doomsday looms? Moving between Canada and Japan, between solid ground and flights of the surreal, Apocalypse for Beginners is the lovely, surprising story of two people travelling from friendship to romance, and from separation to the possibility of reunion.

Six degrés de liberté cest lhistoire dune jeune fille qui désire repousser les limites de lexpérience humaine, dun hacker qui veut optimiser la circulation mondiale des bananes et des coussins, dune employee de la gendarmerie qui reve den finir une bonne fois pour toutes avec la geographie, dun conteneur fantome qui sillonne les mers et les ecrans dordinateurs, dun septuagenaire qui perd un boulon, dune acheteuse compulsive bipolaire, de six perruches et dun chat intermittent, tous unis dans un jeu de societe a lechelle planetaire dont personne ne connait les regles. En somme lhistoire dun voyage qui echappe aux lois de la gravite, au-dela, bien au-dela de ces six degres de liberte.Nicolas Dickner est ne a Riviere-du-Loup (Canada), a voyage en Amerique latine et en Europe avant de jeter lancre a Quebec puis a Montreal, ou il vit aujourdhui avec sa famille. Il signe en 2005 Nikolski, qui remporte le Prix des libraires du Quebec, le Prix litteraire des collegiens ainsi que le prix Anne-Hebert et qui est, a ce jour, traduit dans une dizaine de langues. Tarmac, son deuxieme roman paru en 2009, est egalement traduit dans plusieurs pays. Six degres de liberte est son troisieme roman, il a obtenu le Prix litteraire du Gouverneur general en 2016.

Six degrés de liberté cest lhistoire dune jeune fille qui désire repousser les limites de lexpérience humaine, dun hacker qui veut optimiser la circulation mondiale des bananes et des coussins, dune employee de la gendarmerie qui reve den finir une bonne fois pour toutes avec la geographie, dun conteneur fantome qui sillonne les mers et les ecrans dordinateurs, dun septuagenaire qui perd un boulon, dune acheteuse compulsive bipolaire, de six perruches et dun chat intermittent, tous unis dans un jeu de societe a lechelle planetaire dont personne ne connait les regles. En somme lhistoire dun voyage qui echappe aux lois de la gravite, au-dela, bien au-dela de ces six degres de liberte.Nicolas Dickner est ne a Riviere-du-Loup (Canada), a voyage en Amerique latine et en Europe avant de jeter lancre a Quebec puis a Montreal, ou il vit aujourdhui avec sa famille. Il signe en 2005 Nikolski, qui remporte le Prix des libraires du Quebec, le Prix litteraire des collegiens ainsi que le prix Anne-Hebert et qui est, a ce jour, traduit dans une dizaine de langues. Tarmac, son deuxieme roman paru en 2009, est egalement traduit dans plusieurs pays. Six degres de liberte est son troisieme roman, il a obtenu le Prix litteraire du Gouverneur general en 2016.

From the author of Canada Reads winner Nikolski comes a sweet, smart and occasionally surreal romantic comedy, featuring two young friends who could become loversif only one of them hadnt convinced herself that the end of the world is nigh.The Randall family was always a little strange. For generations, each member receives a prophetic vision of the apocalypsebut always on a different date. When the End of Days fails to materialize, yet another Randall goes mad.In the summer of 1989, Hope Randalls mother, in an attempt to forestall the latest imminent apocalypse, loads up the Lada and heads west from Yarmouth. After their car dies in Riviere-du-Loup, the mother and daughter put down roots, as yet another day of reckoning comes and goes.Mickey Bauermann has never seen the likes of the red-headed wonder that is Hope, whose idea of a good time is spending Friday nights watching David Suzuki reveal the mysteries of science on TV. The Bauermann family has been in the concrete business for generations, but Mickey has other ideas of what he wants to do with his life. For now, he spends every available second with Hope, whose mother has become increasingly unhinged. The teens take refuge in Mickeys bungalow basement, aka The Bunker, where they watch the twentieth century crumble and transform on the small screen.But when Hopes destiny as a Randall is revealed by chanceand by a bomb shelters worth of ramen noodlesthe time for hiding out is past. For Hope, the only way to deal with the end of the world is to confront it head on. The journey begins...

Entre Canadá y Japón, entre la más aguda disección de la realidad y el surrealismo más hilarante, Apocalipsis para principiantes es una comedia romántica entrañable e inteligente sobre dos grandes amigos que podrian llegar a ser novios si no fuera porque uno de ellos esta plenamente convencido de que el fin del mundo se acerca.La familia Randall siempre fue un poco extraña. Durante generaciones, cada miembro recibe una vision profetica del fin del mundo, siempre en una fecha diferente. Cuando llega ese dia y no ocurre nada, otro Randall se vuelve loco. En el verano de 1989 la madre de Hope Randall, en un intento de evitar el apocalipsis inminente, se sube a su Lada y se dirige al oeste... Pero el coche se averia en la pequeña ciudad de Riviere-du-Loup, Quebec, donde madre e hija se quedan a esperar el anunciado apocalipsis, mientras viven en el local de una antigua tienda de animales exoticos.La familia Bauermann ha estado en el negocio del cemento durante generaciones, pero Mickey no tiene intencion de continuar esa tradicion familiar. De momento pasa cada segundo libre con Hope, la chica mas extraordinaria e inteligente que ha conocido. Los adolescentes se refugian en el sotano de Mickey, al que llaman el Bunker, desde donde ven, a traves de la pequeña pantalla, como el siglo XX se desmorona y se transforma para siempre. Pero cuando el destino de Hope como una Randall se revela por casualidad en un bol de fideos chinos, siente que la unica manera de lidiar con el fin del mundo es enfrentarse a el, se aleja de Mickey y comienza su propio viaje...

«Una comedia romántica exuberante, excéntrica, sobre la amistad y el amor.»The TimesEntre Canadá y Japón, entre la más aguda disección de la realidad y el surrealismo más hilarante, Apocalipsis para

Winner of CBC Canada Reads 2010Winner of the Governor Generals Literary Award for TranslationIntricately plotted and shimmering with originality, Nikolski charts the curious and unexpected courses of personal migration, and shows how they just might eventually lead us to home.Spring 1989. Three young people leave their far-flung birthplaces to follow their personal songs of migration. Each ends up in Montreal, each on a voyage of self-discovery, dealing with the mishaps of hearbreak and the twisted brances of their shared family tree. With humour, charm and the sure touch of a born storyteller, Nicolas Dickner crafts a tale that shows the surprising links between garbage-obsessed archaeologists, pirates past and present, earthquake victims, sea snakes, several very large tuna fish, an illiterate deep-sea diver, a Commodore 64, a mysterious book with no cover and a broken compass whose needle obstinately points to the Aleutian village of Nikolski.

Noah, Joyce y un narrador sin nombre, abandonan su pueblo natal para emprender un largo periplo. Susvidas coincidirán en los momentos más inesperados, pero estos tres personajes nunca llegarán a saber que los une exactamente.Con una gran dosis de ironia, pero tambien de fantasia y ternura, el autor de Nikolski nos sumerge en las aguas profundas de un relato que nos transporta a mundos magicos. Nicolas Dickner muestra con un virtuosismo poco comun las conexiones entre un arqueologo de los desechos, filibusteros y piratas informaticos, marineros, serpientes de mar, atunes rojos, innumerables oficinas de correos, indios chipewyans, un libro sin rostro y un compas marino que señala Nikolski, un pueblo minusculo en las islas Aleutianas en el que viven 36 personas, 5.000 ovejas y un numero indeterminado de perros.