Prendre en compte les différences culturelles dans un monde à gérer en commun - Michel SAUQUET, avec la collaboration de Martin VIELAJUS

À ceux qui, dans l’humanitaire, dans l’entreprise, dans les organisations internationales, sont amenés à travailler ou à vivre dans des cultures qui ne sont pas les leurs, ce livre apporte une réflexion sur la différence, les malentendus culturels, l’enjeu de l’identification de terrains d’entente. Il propose à ces professionnels un réflexe de questionnement de la culture de l’autre : a-t-il la même conception du temps, de l’action, des méthodes de travail, de la richesse, de la hiérarchie, de la notion d’égalité, du lien à l’environnement naturel ? Quel sont, dans la société, le poids et l’influence du facteur religieux ? Comment y gère-t-on le rapport entre tradition et modernité ? Parlons-nous le même langage ? Un mot est-il traduit une fois qu’il est traduit ? Toute communication n’est-elle que verbale ? Autant de questions qui nous aident à prendre conscience de notre propre conditionnement culturel et nous incitent à pratiquer ces deux vertus de la relation interculturelle : le doute, qui n’empêche pas les convictions ; la patience, qui n’empêche pas le dynamisme.

Michel SAUQUET travaille depuis une trentaine d’années dans le secteur de la coopération internationale. Il dirige l’Institut de recherche et débat sur la gouvernance. Il enseigne à Sciences Po Paris.

Martin VIELAJUS est directeur-adjoint de l’IRG et enseignant à Sciences Po où il animera en 2008 avec Michel Sauquet le séminaire « approches interculturelles de la gouvernance ».

Octobre 2007 - 330 pages - 21 € -
ISBN : 978-2-84377-135-4

De nouvelles voies vers une prospérité durable - Bernard LIETAER, Margrit KENNEDY - Traduit de l’allemand par Vincent GUIMARD -
Préface de Michel ROCARD

Le processus de mondialisation qui est en œuvre depuis une vingtaine d’années suscite autant l’assentiment que la méfiance. Il s’agit aujourd’hui non pas de savoir si la mondialisation est « bonne » ou « mauvaise », mais d’élaborer un modèle dans lequel tous les participants seraient gagnants. Se fondant sur le rôle que notre système monétaire joue dans ces dysfonctionnements, Bernard Lietaer et Margrit Kennedy démontrent que des organisations ayant une bonne connaissance des attentes au niveau local sont plus à même de remplir des missions sociales comme l’assistance aux enfants ou aux personnes âgées, la lutte contre le chômage… Ils militent pour que les initiatives de portée nationale ou européenne soient soutenues par l’introduction de monnaies régionales. Ce modèle de développement concret, crédible et cohérent, offre une contre-esquisse à la forme actuelle de la mondialisation, et permet de répondre aux attentes légitimes de ces milliards d’hommes qui, actuellement, n’en subissent que les conséquences négatives.

Bernard LIETAER a travaillé dans le domaine des systèmes monétaires pendant 30 ans. Il est l’auteur, entre autres, de future of Money, traduit en 18 langues.
Margrit Kennedy était la première femme professeur d’architecture et d’urbanisme en Allemangne, et la première à se spécialiser en techniques de construction écologique.

Novembre 2008 - 256 pages - 20 € -
ISBN : 978-2-84377-144-6

Pour une politique agricole mondiale -
Matthieu CALAME -
Préface de Christian MOUCHET

L’augmentation récente des prix agricoles est venue relancer les inquiétudes sur l’avenir alimentaire de l’humanité. Face à l’ampleur des défis, il est tentant de croire qu’une révolution technique (OGM, agrocarburants, agriculture de précision guidée par satellite…) fournira des solutions qui dispenseront les sociétés de prendre les mesures politiques et sociales nécessaires. Pourtant le problème, aujourd’hui comme autrefois, est avant tout social et économique et c’est sur sa capacité à produire des lois et des règles intelligentes touchant la gestion de l’eau, du sol, de la biodiversité et des échanges internationaux, que l’humanité doit compter pour assurer tranquillement sa survie alimentaire au XXIe siècle.

Avec une approche originale empruntant à la fois à l’histoire et à l’agronomie, l’auteur se propose de définir une politique mondiale pour l’alimentation de la planète et la sauvegarde de ses ressources.

Matthieu CALAME, né en 1970, est ingénieur agronome. Il a procédé pour la fondation Charles Léopold Mayer pour le Progrès de l’homme à la reconversion de son domaine rural de la ferme de la Bergerie (val d’Oise-France) vers une gestion durable. A ce titre il a également été pendant trois ans président de l’Institut Technique d’Agriculture Biologique (ITAB). Il est actuellement en charge pour la fondation du dossier de l’évolution des recherches sur le vivant et de la gestion durable des territoires.

Avril 2008 - 208 pages - 18 € -
ISBN : 978-2-84377-142-2

Armelle ENDERS

Cet ouvrage traite des cinq pays africains qui ont gardé le portugais comme langue officielle : Angola, Cap-Vert, Guinée-Bissau, Mozam­bique, São Tomé & Príncipe. Il décrit le rapport du Portugal et de l’Afrique, des découvertes aux indépendances, ainsi que le parcours accompli par chacun de ces pays depuis 20 ans.

1994 - 2^e éd. complétée 1998 - 160 pages - 13 cartes - 14 € - ISBN: 978-2-906462-14-4

Armelle ENDERS

Avec presque 200 millions d’habitants et une économie qui oscille autour du 10^e rang mondial, le Brésil appartient aux grandes puissances d’au­jourd’hui et représente à lui seul plus de la moitié de l’Amérique du Sud par sa superficie, sa population, son PIB. Le Brésil est toutefois moins connu pour sa puissance, somme toute récente, que pour sa réputation de « pays métis », de mélange réussi et harmonieux de populations aux origines variées.
Faire l’histoire du Brésil ne consiste pas à tracer une évolution rectiligne et déterministe de ce qui serait un « destin national », la construction implacable du «Géant lusophone », depuis l’arrivée des Portugais en 1500 jusqu’à la présidence de Lula, mais de suggérer que bien d’autres destins étaient possibles. Le livre, qui prend en compte la préhistoire du pays, insiste sur la diversité et les contradictions de la société brésilienne, tant à la période dite coloniale que depuis l’Indépendance de 1822. Il montre le rôle central qu’exercèrent Portugais et Brésiliens pendant toute la durée de la traite négrière, le fonctionnement du système esclavagiste, ainsi que les séquelles de longue durée que fait peser celui-ci sur les rapports sociaux et la citoyenneté au Brésil. Il s’efforce, enfin, de faire l’archéologie du «Brésil métis », en plaçant dans son contexte le métissage, ses formes, ses significations et ses enjeux.

Armelle ENDERS, spécialiste d’histoire du Brésil, est maître de conférences en histoire contemporaine à l’université Paris 4-Sorbonne.

2008 - 224 pages - 20 € - ISBN : 978-2-915540-34-5

Alvise CA’ DA MOSTO (1455 et 1456) - Préface, traduction et notes: Frédérique VERRIER

En 1455, le Vénitien Alvise Ca’ da Mosto s’embarque sur une caravelle de l’infant Henri le Navigateur pour commercer sur les côtes africaines. Deux voyages le conduiront jusqu’aux côtes à peine reconnues du Sénégal et de la Gambie. Au passage, il découvre les îles du Cap-Vert. De retour à Venise, il augmente sa relation de la «navigation» de Pêro de Sintra (1460), rédigée d’après le journal de bord de ce dernier.
Le regard de l’auteur n’est pas celui d’un chroniqueur officiel mais d’un marchand sans préjugés et curieux de tout, répugnant à l’affabulation et d’une surprenante ouverture d’esprit, notamment lors de ses dialogues avec les musulmans, ce qui fait de ce texte le premier récit «moderne» de la littérature de voyage. De surcroît, alternant avec la description des paysages et des péripéties de la navigation, les notations sur la vie quotidienne des Berbères ou des Noirs font de ce récit le premier «reportage» ethnographique connu.

1994 - nouvelle édition remaniée 2003 - ouvrage coédité avec les Éditions Unesco - 160 pages - 18 € - ISBN : 978-2-906462-94-6

Francis DUPUIS-DÉRI

«Antimondialisation», «altermondialisation» ou «mouvement pour la justice mondiale» : le «mouvement des mouvements», à la fois enraciné dans les contextes politiques nationaux et nourri de ses multiples liens transnationaux, représente une puissante lame de fond, un ressac contre l’idéologie néolibérale et les politiques menées depuis des décennies que les contestataires jugent éminemment injustes et néfastes pour une grande partie de la population. Ce vaste mouvement social est complexe. On le voit dans ses actions, ses pratiques, ses organisations et ses discours. Il est une force critique porteuse d’une multitude d’idéaux, d’espoirs et de projets souvent contradictoires.

Francis DUPUIS-DÉRI est professeur au département de science politique de l’UQAM. Il a fait paraître de nombreux livres portant sur les mouvements contestataires contemporains et sur la politique internationale. Il est aussi l’auteur, aux Éditions du Boréal, de “L’Archipel identitaire”. Recueil d’entretiens sur l’identité culturelle (avec Marcos Ancelovici, 1997) et de “Identités mosaïques”. Entretiens sur l’identité culturelle des Québécois juifs (avec Julie Châteauvert, 2004).

2009 - 128 pages - 12,95 $CAN (9,5 €) - ISBN : 978-2-7646-0644-5

Nadine BISMUTH

Dix ans après avoir publié “Les gens fidèles ne font pas les nouvelles”, Nadine Bismuth revient au genre qui l’a fait connaître et lui a valu un grand succès.
Elle nous donne dans ce nouveau recueil une série de tableaux de la vie contemporaine où la finesse de l’analyse n’a d’égale que le plaisir communicatif qu’elle prend à croquer ses modèles. Célibataires qui désespèrent de trouver l’âme sœur, épouse dépendante, jeune femme qui tient à garder sa liberté et d’autres qui ne souhaitent que la perdre. Autant de personnages qui animent ces nouvelles avec humour, dérision et beaucoup de sensibilité.

Nadine BISMUTH revient à ses thèmes favoris que sont la quête de l’amour et l’engagement amoureux. Ceux-ci sont-ils toujours possibles à une époque où tout va trop vite et dans laquelle trop souvent l’individualisme prime sur le couple?
Née à Montréal en 1975, Nadine Bismuth complète ses études littéraires à l’Université McGill, où elle obtient une maîtrise en littérature française. En 1999, elle publie son premier ouvrage, un recueil de nouvelles, “Les Gens fidèles ne font pas les nouvelles”. Ce livre remporte le Prix Adrienne-Choquette de la nouvelle ainsi que le Prix de l’Association des libraires du Québec. En 2004, Nadine Bismuth fait paraître un deuxième ouvrage, un roman cette fois-ci, “Scrapbook”.
“Les gens fidèles ne font pas les nouvelles” et “Scrapbook” ont été traduits en plusieurs langues.

2009 - 224 pages - 22,95 $CAN (18 €) - ISBN : 978-2-7646-0662-9

Monique PROULX

Il y a Lila Szach, venue d’un autre âge et d’un autre continent, qui veille jalousement sur la paix des lieux. Le jeune Jérémi qui tente désespérément de déjouer l’avenir et le divorce de ses parents et qui finit par se lier d’amitié avec la vieille sorcière du lac. La bande des Clémont, si peu conscients du prix de ce qui les entoure, même s’ils y vivent depuis toujours. Claire, qui tente de tenir en équilibre entre le monde de l’imagination et celui de la réalité. Violette, la survenante, qui veut fuir l’horreur de la maladie mais qui porte en elle des blessures beaucoup trop profondes. La beauté du monde qui les entoure suffira-t-elle à les sauver ?

Monique PROULX est scénariste et a écrit plusieurs romans dont Homme invisible à la fenêtre (1993, Prix des libraires du Québec, prix Québec-Paris, prix littéraire Desjardins), “Le cœur est un muscle involontaire” (2002), des nouvelles, “Sans cœur et sans reproche” (1983, prix Adrienne-Choquette, prix littéraire Desjardins, Grand Prix du Journal de Montréal) et “Les Aurores montréales” (1996).

391 pages - 27.95 $CAN (21 €) - ISBN: 978-2-7646-0581-3

Maître TWENGEMBO

Le présent manuel, réalisé dans le cadre du Droit Harmonisé OHADA, ne présente que les principaux formulaires des Actes OHADA. C’est pourquoi les formulaires des procédures spécifiques à chaque droit interne (Baux, Mariage, Divorce, Successions, Saisies-contrefaçon, Régimes matrimoniaux, etc.) ne s’y trouvent pas.
La rédaction des requêtes laisse des blancs à compléter, chacun à sa manière et avec son style, l’essentiel étant de convaincre le juge à signer le projet de l’autorisation de pratiquer la saisie. En effet dans les procédures simplifiées, lorsqu’il y a opposition, la charge et le risque de la preuve pèsent sur le demandeur de l’autorisation (article 13). Singulièrement dans les saisies conservatoires, nonobstant la saisie préalablement pratiquée, le titre ne peut être obtenu que si la preuve de la créance est rapportée.

Maître TWENGEMBO est avocat au barreau du Cameroun.

2007 (2e édition) - 495 pages - 21 x 29,7 cm - 30 € (prix export) - ISBN: 978-9956-444-39-1 - collection « Droit Uniforme »

Paul-Gérard POUGOUE, Yvette Rachel KALIEU ELONGO

Un modèle unique et séduisant d’intégration est conçu avec la création, en 1993, de l’Organisation pour l’Harmonisation en Afrique du Droit des Affaires (OHADA). Celle-ci est désormais omniprésente, avec ses lueurs et ses leurres, ses promesses et ses angoisses. Que l’on soit homme politique, investisseur, homme d’affaires, bailleur de fonds, chef d’entreprise, professionnel du droit, associé, salarié, enseignant, chercheur, étudiant…, nul ne peut et ne doit aujourd’hui se désintéresser de l’espace juridique et judiciaire qui se construit et du devenir de l’OHADA.
Dans un style vivant, les auteurs veulent faire connaître à tout lecteur, spécialiste ou non, mais surtout comprendre l’OHADA de l’intérieur et méditer sur son évolution. La première partie est ainsi consacrée, sans complaisance, aux épineux problèmes institutionnels. A la suite, la seconde partie porte un regard qualitatif sur le droit matériel, moins pour évaluer sa technicité que pour apprécier son effectivité et son attractivité.
En fin de compte, le but recherché est de sensibiliser les décideurs sur l’ampleur des questions et la profondeur des solutions à trouver.

Ouvrage coédité avec les éditions Éburnie en Côte d’Ivoire et Ruisseaux d’Afrique au Bénin

2008 - 228 pages - 23 € (prix export) - ISBN : 978-9956-444-48-0

Jérôme LEDOUX FOUOTSA

L’origine de ces contes et légendes se perd dans la nuit des temps et dans celle de l’humanité africaine. Les Bamiléké (peuple du grass field au Cameroun), fermement attachés à leurs us et coutumes par un pacte occulte, ont le devoir de transmettre à leur descendance, dans le respect scrupuleux de l’éthique séculaire, les récits ancestraux qui regorgent d’une pédagogie pluridimensionnelle.

2009 - 124 pages - 13,5 X 20 cm - 10 € (prix export) -
ISBN : 978-2-912086-69-8

The Asian American Superhero Antholog - Edited by Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow, and Jerry Ma

Appealing to both comics fans and Asian Americans seeking to claim their place in American culture, Secret Identities makes brilliant use of the conventions of the superhero comic book to expose the real face of the Asian American experience.

This groundbreaking graphic anthology brings together leading Asian American creators in the comics industry—including Gene Yang (National Book Award finalist for American Born Chinese), Bernard Chang (Wonder Woman), Greg Pak (The Hulk), and Christine Norrie (Black Canary Wedding Special )—to craft original graphical short stories set in a compelling “shadow history” of our country: from the building of the railroads to the Japanese American internment, the Vietnam airlift, the murder of Vincent Chin, and the incarceration of Dr. Wen Ho Lee.

Entertaining and enlightening, Secret Identities offers whiz-bang action, searing satire, and thoughtful commentary from a community too often overlooked by the cultural mainstream, while showcasing a vivid cross-section of the talents whose imagination and creativity is driving the contemporary comics renaissance.

Jeff Yang was the founder of the pioneering Asian American periodical aMagazine. The author of three books and the biweekly column “Asian Pop” for the San Francisco Chronicle, he lives in Brooklyn, New York. Parry Shen, best known for his lead role in the movie Better Luck Tomorrow, lives in Southern California. Keith Chow, an educator and comics journalist, lives in Maryland. Jerry Ma, the founder of the indie comics studio Epic Proportions, lives in New York City.

$21.95 / £15.99
Pub Date: Spring 2009
Format: paperback
Trim: 8 x 10, 192 pages
ISBN: 978-1-59558-398-7

Baseball and the Rise (and Fall) of the American Way Abroad - by Robert Elias

Is the face of American baseball throughout the world that of goodwill ambassador or ugly American? Has baseball crafted its own image or instead been at the mercy of broader forces shaping our society and the globe? The Empire Strikes Out gives us the sweeping story of how baseball and America are intertwined in the export of “the American way.”

From the Civil War to George W. Bush and the Iraq War, we see baseball’s role in developing the American empire, first at home and then beyond our shores. And from Albert Spalding and baseball’s first World Tour to Bud Selig and the World Baseball Classic, we witness the globalization of America’s national pastime and baseball’s role in spreading the American dream. Besides describing baseball’s frequent and often surprising connections to America’s presence around the world, Elias assesses the effects of this relationship both on our foreign policies and on the sport itself and asks whether baseball can play a positive role or rather only reinforce America’s dominance around the globe. Like Franklin Foer in How Soccer Explains the World, Elias is driven by compelling stories, unusual events, and unique individuals. His seamless integration of original research and compelling analysis makes this a baseball book that’s about more than just sports.

Robert Elias teaches law and politics at the University of San Francisco. He’s the author and editor of eight books, most recently Baseball and the American Dream, and a baseball novel, The Deadly Tools of Ignorance. He lives in Mill Valley, California.

$27.95 / £10.99
Pub Date: Fall 2009
Format: hardcover
Trim: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, 416 pages
ISBN: 978-1-59558-195-2

The Purging of Muslim Spain - by Matthew Carr

In April 1609, King Philip III of Spain signed an edict denouncing the Muslim inhabitants of Spain as heretics, traitors, and apostates. Later that year, the entire Muslim population of Spain was given three days to leave Spanish territory, on threat of death.

In a brutal and traumatic exodus, entire families and communities were obliged to abandon homes and villages where they had lived for generations, leaving their property in the hands of their Christian neighbors. In Aragon and Catalonia, Muslims were escorted by government commissioners who forced them to pay whenever they drank water from a river or took refuge in the shade.

For five years the expulsion continued to grind on, until an estimated 300,000 Muslims had been removed from Spanish territory, nearly 5 percent of the total population. By 1614 Spain had successfully implemented what was then the largest act of ethnic cleansing in European history, and Muslim Spain had effectively ceased to exist.

Blood and Faith is celebrated journalist Matthew Carr’s riveting chronicle of this virtually unknown episode, set against the vivid historical backdrop of the history of Muslim Spain. Here is a remarkable window onto a little-known period in modern Europe—a rich and complex tale of competing faiths and beliefs, of cultural oppression and resistance against overwhelming odds.

Matthew Carr is a writer, broadcaster, and journalist and the author of The Infernal Machine (The New Press). He lives in Derbyshire, England.

$28.95
Pub Date: Fall 2009
Format: hardcover
Trim: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, 368 pages
ISBN: 978-1-59558-361-1

Merlinda BOBIS

1987. The Philippine government fights a total war against insurgency. The village of Iraya is militarised. The days are violent and the nights heavy with fireflies in the river where the dead are dumped. With her twelve-metre hair, Estrella, the Fish-Hair Woman, trawls corpses from the water that tastes of lemon grass. She falls in love with the Australian Tony McIntyre who disappears in the conflict. Ten years later, his son travels to Manila to find his father.

How much can the heart accommodate? Death and love, an enemy and a sweetheart, war and an impassioned serenade, and more. Only four chambers but with infinite space like memory, where there is room even for those whom we do not love.

Awards
Winner: 2014 Juan C. Laya Prize for Best Novel in a Foreign Language
Winner: 2013 Most Underrated Book Award
Finalist: 2013 Davitt Awards. Best Crime and Mystery Books by Australian Women

“As I was reading my thoughts kept turning to Wide Sargasso Sea. It shares with Jean Rhys’s masterpiece more than just a threat to topple into tragedy, but Fish-Hair Woman takes a wider view. It is a love story, a murder mystery, a story about family and a story about the impact of the kind of self-perpetuating government corruption that so often befalls a country in political turmoil. It’s ambitious and sprawling, and things could quickly go wrong. Fortunately, they don’t. Bobis is a talented, passionate writer who is unafraid of exploring the storytelling potential of the novel.”
–Tristan Foster, Verity LA

Published by Spinifex, co-edition with Anvil Press, Philippines; Translation into Spanish by JC Sáez Editor, Chile (2017).

2011 - 232 x 154 mm - 303 pp - AUD$29.95 - ISBN: 9781876756970

khulud kHAMIS

Jewellery designer, Maisoon, wants an ordinary extraordinary life, which isn’t easy for a tradition-defying, activist, Palestinian citizen of Israel, who refuses to be crushed by the feeling that she is an unwelcome guest in the land of her ancestors. Frustrated by the apathy of her boyfriend Ziyad and her father Majid—who want her to get on with her life and forget those in the Occupied Territories—she lashes out, only to discover her father isn’t the man she thought he was.

Raised a Christian, in a relationship with a Muslim man and enamoured with a Palestinian woman from the Occupied Territories, Maisoon must decide her own path.

khulud khamis unpacks the multiple layers of culture, religion, sexuality, politics, feminism and nationalism in the hope of gathering the fragmented pieces of the past and reclaiming the lost contiguity of being Palestinian.
—Samah Sabawi, Palestinian playwright and commentator

... khulud khamis has the rare gift of speaking directly to a reader’s soul; this radiant novel shows just what can happen when women challenge the limits of their world. —Sharon Olinka, author of The Good City

khulud khamis is a Palestinian feminist writer, born to a Slovak mother and a Palestinian father. She holds a Master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Haifa and works in the field of social change organizations. She is a member of the feminist organization Isha L’Isha – Haifa Feminist Center. She lives in Haifa with her daughter. This is her first novel.

Published by Spinifex Press; co-edition with New Internationalist UK; Italian translation FILA37 (2015); Turkish translation Gulduniya (2017).

2015 - 192 pp - ISBN: 9781742199009
Fiction

Susan HAWTHORNE

In a globalised world, megacorp publishing is all about numbers, about sameness, about following a formula based on the latest megasuccess. Each book is expected to pay for itself and all the externalities of publishing such as offices and CEO salaries.

It means that books which take off slowly but have long lives, the books that change social norms, are less likely to be published.

Independent publishers are seeking another way. A way of engagement with society and methods that reflect something important about the locale or the niche they inhabit. Independent and small publishers are like rare plants that pop up among the larger growth but add something different, perhaps they feed the soil, bring colour or scent into the world.

Bibliodiversity is a term invented by Chilean publishers in the 1990s as a way of envisioning a different kind of publishing. In this manifesto, Susan Hawthorne provides a scathing critique of the global publishing industry set against a visionary proposal for organic publishing. She looks at free speech and fair speech, at the environmental costs of mainstream publishing and at the promises and challenges of the move to digital.

Susan Hawthorne has worked in the book industry for more than 30 years as a writer, festival organiser, reviewer, editor, publisher and mentor. In 1991, she co-founded Spinifex Press with Renate Klein, after working for Penguin Australia for four years. She has written extensively about the industry, co-organised digital training for small and large publishers, taught Publishing Studies and Creative Writing, and has been an active member of peak bodies for publishers and writers. From 2011 to 2016, she was the English-language Coordinator for the International Alliance of Independent Publishers based in Paris. She is Adjunct Professor in the Writing Program at James Cook University and Publisher at Spinifex Press.

Bibliodiversity can be read as a manifesto for the defence and promotion of diversity in all its forms, but also as a master class in ethics.—JUAN CARLOS SÁEZ C., Director Gerente, JC Sáez Editor, Chile

This publication should be mandatory reading for anyone within the publishing industry.—MARY MASTERS, General Manager, Small Press Network, Australia

2014 - 104 pp - ISBN: 9781742199306
Non-Fiction

Rights: World. Published by Spinifex Press; Canadian rights sold to Fernwood Publishing; Translations into Arabic: December 2015, Tunisia, Éditions Med Ali, Arabic; Syria, Atlas Publishing, Arabic; Egypt, Elain Publishing, Arabic; Lebanon, Dar-Alfarabi and Arab Diffusion. French, 2016: France, Éditions Charles Léopold Mayer; Switzerland, éditions d’en bas; Benin, Éditions Ruisseaux d’Afrique; Mali, Éditions Jamana; Cameroun, Presses universitaires d’Afrique ; Spanish, 2017: Chile, JC Sáez; Mexico, Trilce Ediciones; Uruguay: Ediciones Trilce; also publishers in Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia. German, 2017, Verbrecher Verlag.

Fernando VELOSO, Sergio GUIMARÃES FERREIRA (orgs.)

Este importante livro mostra que é possível alcançar redução expressiva da violência armada, da insegurança e da criminalidade que aterrorizam a população de grandes áreas urbanas do Brasil. Seus autores mostram – com fatos e não vagos discursos – que isso não se trata de uma esperança insensata. Não apenas porque foi alcançado em Nova York, Boston, Bogotá e várias outras cidades do mundo, mas principalmente porque, no Brasil, reduziu-se a violência em lugares em que isso era mais improvável: no Jardim Ângela, bairro da periferia da cidade de São Paulo que chegou a ser considerado o bairro mais violento do mundo, e em Diadema, que deixou de ser em quatro anos a cidade mais violenta de São Paulo, passando a ocupar o 18º posto.

Se você não pretende se deixar levar pelo desencanto, pela frustração, pelo ceticismo e pela desesperança, leia este livro. Entenderá, com base em experiências reais, que é possível, sem ilusões voluntaristas, apelos messiânicos e excessos e abusos no exercício da autoridade do Estado, mostrar aos bandidos armados que essa é uma longa guerra de muitas batalhas, mas que, ao fim e ao cabo, eles não só não podem ganhá-la, como a estão perdendo – e a perderão.

2008 - 208 páginas - 16 x 23 cm - R$ 35,00 - ISBN: 978-85-7740-046-1

Lêdo IVO
Pinturas de Gonçalo IVO
Desenho de Gianguido BONFANTI

O poema narra a visão da infância guardada pela memória. Obra de perda e despedida, seus versos longos se desdobram como as ondas do mar alagoano. Música e imagem se fundem para exprimir uma reflexão sobre o sentido da existência, da qual as pinturas de Gonçalo Ivo não são comentário ou simples ilustração.

2008 - 64 páginas - 16,8 x 24,5 cm - R$ 38,00 - ISBN: 978-85-7740-040-9

Katia MACIEL (org.)

37 textos de teóricos e artistas que compõem, em suas inter-relações, amplo panorama sobre as novas situações de cinema, em que superfícies híbridas de luz e movimento se conjugam com a participação e a imersão dos espectadores. A introdução da organizadora define o título do livro.

2009 - 432 páginas - 16 x 23 cm - R$ 65,00 - ISBN: 978-85-7740-009-3

The Asian American Superhero Antholog - Edited by Jeff Yang, Parry Shen, Keith Chow, and Jerry Ma

Appealing to both comics fans and Asian Americans seeking to claim their place in American culture, Secret Identities makes brilliant use of the conventions of the superhero comic book to expose the real face of the Asian American experience.

This groundbreaking graphic anthology brings together leading Asian American creators in the comics industry—including Gene Yang (National Book Award finalist for American Born Chinese), Bernard Chang (Wonder Woman), Greg Pak (The Hulk), and Christine Norrie (Black Canary Wedding Special )—to craft original graphical short stories set in a compelling “shadow history” of our country: from the building of the railroads to the Japanese American internment, the Vietnam airlift, the murder of Vincent Chin, and the incarceration of Dr. Wen Ho Lee.

Entertaining and enlightening, Secret Identities offers whiz-bang action, searing satire, and thoughtful commentary from a community too often overlooked by the cultural mainstream, while showcasing a vivid cross-section of the talents whose imagination and creativity is driving the contemporary comics renaissance.

Jeff Yang was the founder of the pioneering Asian American periodical aMagazine. The author of three books and the biweekly column “Asian Pop” for the San Francisco Chronicle, he lives in Brooklyn, New York. Parry Shen, best known for his lead role in the movie Better Luck Tomorrow, lives in Southern California. Keith Chow, an educator and comics journalist, lives in Maryland. Jerry Ma, the founder of the indie comics studio Epic Proportions, lives in New York City.

$21.95 / £15.99
Pub Date: Spring 2009
Format: paperback
Trim: 8 x 10, 192 pages
ISBN: 978-1-59558-398-7

Baseball and the Rise (and Fall) of the American Way Abroad - by Robert Elias

Is the face of American baseball throughout the world that of goodwill ambassador or ugly American? Has baseball crafted its own image or instead been at the mercy of broader forces shaping our society and the globe? The Empire Strikes Out gives us the sweeping story of how baseball and America are intertwined in the export of “the American way.”

From the Civil War to George W. Bush and the Iraq War, we see baseball’s role in developing the American empire, first at home and then beyond our shores. And from Albert Spalding and baseball’s first World Tour to Bud Selig and the World Baseball Classic, we witness the globalization of America’s national pastime and baseball’s role in spreading the American dream. Besides describing baseball’s frequent and often surprising connections to America’s presence around the world, Elias assesses the effects of this relationship both on our foreign policies and on the sport itself and asks whether baseball can play a positive role or rather only reinforce America’s dominance around the globe. Like Franklin Foer in How Soccer Explains the World, Elias is driven by compelling stories, unusual events, and unique individuals. His seamless integration of original research and compelling analysis makes this a baseball book that’s about more than just sports.

Robert Elias teaches law and politics at the University of San Francisco. He’s the author and editor of eight books, most recently Baseball and the American Dream, and a baseball novel, The Deadly Tools of Ignorance. He lives in Mill Valley, California.

$27.95 / £10.99
Pub Date: Fall 2009
Format: hardcover
Trim: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, 416 pages
ISBN: 978-1-59558-195-2

The Purging of Muslim Spain - by Matthew Carr

In April 1609, King Philip III of Spain signed an edict denouncing the Muslim inhabitants of Spain as heretics, traitors, and apostates. Later that year, the entire Muslim population of Spain was given three days to leave Spanish territory, on threat of death.

In a brutal and traumatic exodus, entire families and communities were obliged to abandon homes and villages where they had lived for generations, leaving their property in the hands of their Christian neighbors. In Aragon and Catalonia, Muslims were escorted by government commissioners who forced them to pay whenever they drank water from a river or took refuge in the shade.

For five years the expulsion continued to grind on, until an estimated 300,000 Muslims had been removed from Spanish territory, nearly 5 percent of the total population. By 1614 Spain had successfully implemented what was then the largest act of ethnic cleansing in European history, and Muslim Spain had effectively ceased to exist.

Blood and Faith is celebrated journalist Matthew Carr’s riveting chronicle of this virtually unknown episode, set against the vivid historical backdrop of the history of Muslim Spain. Here is a remarkable window onto a little-known period in modern Europe—a rich and complex tale of competing faiths and beliefs, of cultural oppression and resistance against overwhelming odds.

Matthew Carr is a writer, broadcaster, and journalist and the author of The Infernal Machine (The New Press). He lives in Derbyshire, England.

$28.95
Pub Date: Fall 2009
Format: hardcover
Trim: 6 1/8 x 9 1/4, 368 pages
ISBN: 978-1-59558-361-1

Merlinda BOBIS

1987. The Philippine government fights a total war against insurgency. The village of Iraya is militarised. The days are violent and the nights heavy with fireflies in the river where the dead are dumped. With her twelve-metre hair, Estrella, the Fish-Hair Woman, trawls corpses from the water that tastes of lemon grass. She falls in love with the Australian Tony McIntyre who disappears in the conflict. Ten years later, his son travels to Manila to find his father.

How much can the heart accommodate? Death and love, an enemy and a sweetheart, war and an impassioned serenade, and more. Only four chambers but with infinite space like memory, where there is room even for those whom we do not love.

Awards
Winner: 2014 Juan C. Laya Prize for Best Novel in a Foreign Language
Winner: 2013 Most Underrated Book Award
Finalist: 2013 Davitt Awards. Best Crime and Mystery Books by Australian Women

“As I was reading my thoughts kept turning to Wide Sargasso Sea. It shares with Jean Rhys’s masterpiece more than just a threat to topple into tragedy, but Fish-Hair Woman takes a wider view. It is a love story, a murder mystery, a story about family and a story about the impact of the kind of self-perpetuating government corruption that so often befalls a country in political turmoil. It’s ambitious and sprawling, and things could quickly go wrong. Fortunately, they don’t. Bobis is a talented, passionate writer who is unafraid of exploring the storytelling potential of the novel.”
–Tristan Foster, Verity LA

Published by Spinifex, co-edition with Anvil Press, Philippines; Translation into Spanish by JC Sáez Editor, Chile (2017).

2011 - 232 x 154 mm - 303 pp - AUD$29.95 - ISBN: 9781876756970

khulud kHAMIS

Jewellery designer, Maisoon, wants an ordinary extraordinary life, which isn’t easy for a tradition-defying, activist, Palestinian citizen of Israel, who refuses to be crushed by the feeling that she is an unwelcome guest in the land of her ancestors. Frustrated by the apathy of her boyfriend Ziyad and her father Majid—who want her to get on with her life and forget those in the Occupied Territories—she lashes out, only to discover her father isn’t the man she thought he was.

Raised a Christian, in a relationship with a Muslim man and enamoured with a Palestinian woman from the Occupied Territories, Maisoon must decide her own path.

khulud khamis unpacks the multiple layers of culture, religion, sexuality, politics, feminism and nationalism in the hope of gathering the fragmented pieces of the past and reclaiming the lost contiguity of being Palestinian.
—Samah Sabawi, Palestinian playwright and commentator

... khulud khamis has the rare gift of speaking directly to a reader’s soul; this radiant novel shows just what can happen when women challenge the limits of their world. —Sharon Olinka, author of The Good City

khulud khamis is a Palestinian feminist writer, born to a Slovak mother and a Palestinian father. She holds a Master’s degree in English Literature from the University of Haifa and works in the field of social change organizations. She is a member of the feminist organization Isha L’Isha – Haifa Feminist Center. She lives in Haifa with her daughter. This is her first novel.

Published by Spinifex Press; co-edition with New Internationalist UK; Italian translation FILA37 (2015); Turkish translation Gulduniya (2017).

2015 - 192 pp - ISBN: 9781742199009
Fiction

Susan HAWTHORNE

In a globalised world, megacorp publishing is all about numbers, about sameness, about following a formula based on the latest megasuccess. Each book is expected to pay for itself and all the externalities of publishing such as offices and CEO salaries.

It means that books which take off slowly but have long lives, the books that change social norms, are less likely to be published.

Independent publishers are seeking another way. A way of engagement with society and methods that reflect something important about the locale or the niche they inhabit. Independent and small publishers are like rare plants that pop up among the larger growth but add something different, perhaps they feed the soil, bring colour or scent into the world.

Bibliodiversity is a term invented by Chilean publishers in the 1990s as a way of envisioning a different kind of publishing. In this manifesto, Susan Hawthorne provides a scathing critique of the global publishing industry set against a visionary proposal for organic publishing. She looks at free speech and fair speech, at the environmental costs of mainstream publishing and at the promises and challenges of the move to digital.

Susan Hawthorne has worked in the book industry for more than 30 years as a writer, festival organiser, reviewer, editor, publisher and mentor. In 1991, she co-founded Spinifex Press with Renate Klein, after working for Penguin Australia for four years. She has written extensively about the industry, co-organised digital training for small and large publishers, taught Publishing Studies and Creative Writing, and has been an active member of peak bodies for publishers and writers. From 2011 to 2016, she was the English-language Coordinator for the International Alliance of Independent Publishers based in Paris. She is Adjunct Professor in the Writing Program at James Cook University and Publisher at Spinifex Press.

Bibliodiversity can be read as a manifesto for the defence and promotion of diversity in all its forms, but also as a master class in ethics.—JUAN CARLOS SÁEZ C., Director Gerente, JC Sáez Editor, Chile

This publication should be mandatory reading for anyone within the publishing industry.—MARY MASTERS, General Manager, Small Press Network, Australia

2014 - 104 pp - ISBN: 9781742199306
Non-Fiction

Rights: World. Published by Spinifex Press; Canadian rights sold to Fernwood Publishing; Translations into Arabic: December 2015, Tunisia, Éditions Med Ali, Arabic; Syria, Atlas Publishing, Arabic; Egypt, Elain Publishing, Arabic; Lebanon, Dar-Alfarabi and Arab Diffusion. French, 2016: France, Éditions Charles Léopold Mayer; Switzerland, éditions d’en bas; Benin, Éditions Ruisseaux d’Afrique; Mali, Éditions Jamana; Cameroun, Presses universitaires d’Afrique ; Spanish, 2017: Chile, JC Sáez; Mexico, Trilce Ediciones; Uruguay: Ediciones Trilce; also publishers in Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia. German, 2017, Verbrecher Verlag.

Fernando VELOSO, Sergio GUIMARÃES FERREIRA (orgs.)

Este importante livro mostra que é possível alcançar redução expressiva da violência armada, da insegurança e da criminalidade que aterrorizam a população de grandes áreas urbanas do Brasil. Seus autores mostram – com fatos e não vagos discursos – que isso não se trata de uma esperança insensata. Não apenas porque foi alcançado em Nova York, Boston, Bogotá e várias outras cidades do mundo, mas principalmente porque, no Brasil, reduziu-se a violência em lugares em que isso era mais improvável: no Jardim Ângela, bairro da periferia da cidade de São Paulo que chegou a ser considerado o bairro mais violento do mundo, e em Diadema, que deixou de ser em quatro anos a cidade mais violenta de São Paulo, passando a ocupar o 18º posto.

Se você não pretende se deixar levar pelo desencanto, pela frustração, pelo ceticismo e pela desesperança, leia este livro. Entenderá, com base em experiências reais, que é possível, sem ilusões voluntaristas, apelos messiânicos e excessos e abusos no exercício da autoridade do Estado, mostrar aos bandidos armados que essa é uma longa guerra de muitas batalhas, mas que, ao fim e ao cabo, eles não só não podem ganhá-la, como a estão perdendo – e a perderão.

2008 - 208 páginas - 16 x 23 cm - R$ 35,00 - ISBN: 978-85-7740-046-1

Lêdo IVO
Pinturas de Gonçalo IVO
Desenho de Gianguido BONFANTI

O poema narra a visão da infância guardada pela memória. Obra de perda e despedida, seus versos longos se desdobram como as ondas do mar alagoano. Música e imagem se fundem para exprimir uma reflexão sobre o sentido da existência, da qual as pinturas de Gonçalo Ivo não são comentário ou simples ilustração.

2008 - 64 páginas - 16,8 x 24,5 cm - R$ 38,00 - ISBN: 978-85-7740-040-9

Katia MACIEL (org.)

37 textos de teóricos e artistas que compõem, em suas inter-relações, amplo panorama sobre as novas situações de cinema, em que superfícies híbridas de luz e movimento se conjugam com a participação e a imersão dos espectadores. A introdução da organizadora define o título do livro.

2009 - 432 páginas - 16 x 23 cm - R$ 65,00 - ISBN: 978-85-7740-009-3