Nicolas Dickner's first novel, Nikolski , was published in 2005 to rave reviews and went on to win Quebec's most prestigious literary awards, including the Prix des libraires du Québec, the Prix littéraire des collegians and the Prix Anne-Hébert. It also won France's Prix Lavinal Printemps des lecteurs.
To date, Nikolski has been published in five languages and seven countries. The English translation, by Lazer Lederhendler, was published in 2008 and won the Governor General's Award for French-to-English translation.
After studying visual arts and literature at university, Nicolas travelled extensively in Europe and Latin America, then settled in Montreal, which continues to be his home base.
In 2000 he published his first book, a collection of short stories entitled L'encyclopédie du petit cercle, which won two awards, including the Prix Adrienne-Choquette, given annually to the best collection of short fiction in French by a Quebec author.
Nicolas is also the author of Boulevard Banquise, a children's book, and a second short story collection, Traité de balistique, both published in 2006. He is currently a literary columnist for the Montreal cultural weekly Voir and is working on his next novel.
Lazer Lederhendler's career as a literary translator spans more than 30 years. He has won two awards for his translation of Nikolski, the Governor General's Award for French-to-English translation in 2008 and the Quebec Writers' Federation translation prize in 2009.
He has also been nominated for the Governor General's Award three other times, for his translations of novels by Claire Dé (The Sparrow Has Cut the Day in Half), Pierre Tourangeau (Larry Volt) and Gaetan Soucy (The Immaculate Conception).
His translation of The Immaculate Conception was also shortlisted for the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and won the Quebec Writers' Federation Award in 2007.
Lazer's latest work — the translation of Pascale Quiviger's novel La Maison des temps rompus — is forthcoming from House of Anansi Press in 2010.
He lives in Montreal.
Nikolski is a small village in the Aleutian Islands off the shore of Alaska. It is also a thematic connection for Nicolas Dickner's novel about three young francophones, unaware of the ties that bind them.
One is an unnamed young man who works in a secondhand bookshop and cherishes his only gift from his father, a broken compass that mysteriously points towards Nikolski.
Joyce, who comes from an Acadian family, is inspired by her grandfather's stories about the family history of sailors and pirates. She runs away to Montreal, where she finds a day job gutting fish and spends her nights dumpster diving for computer parts.
Noah spent the first 18 years of his life living as a nomad, roaming the roads of central Canada with his mother. He moves to Montreal to study archeology, and ends up writing a thesis on urban garbage.
Full of coincidences and paradoxes, the novel journeys across western Canada, spends time in an immigrant neighbourhood in Montreal and takes a side trip to Venezuela.
Nikolski was published in Quebec in 2005 and has since been garlanded with awards, including the Prix des libraries du Québec, the Prix littéraire des collegiens, the Prix Anne-Hebert for best first book, and France's Prix Printemps des Lecteurs — Lavinal.