Catalogue 2013 - Argosy Agency

ARGOSY
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A R G O S Y
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R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
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A R G O S Y
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ABOUT US
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Argosy Foreign Rights Agency, founded in
2012, manages foreign rights for all titles or
for specific authors on behalf of international publishers and literary agents, and attend
all major book fairs (Frankfurt, Guadalajara,
London, Salone del Libro, Bologna, Buenos
Aires). We sell rights worldwide with a core
in the following territories: English speaking countries, France, Italy, Latin America,
Spain, Portugal and Brazil. In some countries, we work with co-agents.
C A T E R I N A
Our focus is on Portuguese, Brazilian, Catalan and Latin American literature.
We also specialize in selling rights for Eng-
D A
B A R C E L O N A
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L I S C A
S P A I N
Caterina focuses on fiction books from
Catalonia, Latin America and Francophone
countries.
Email: [email protected]
lish and French language non-fiction titles
(radical and critical thinking) to the Latin
S A R A H
American market.
L I S B O N
K A T O O K I
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P O R T U G A L
Sarah mainly works with Portuguese, Brazilian
and Latin American fiction authors.
Email: [email protected]
H E B E R
BUENOS
O S T R O V I E S K Y
AIRES
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ARGENTINA
Heber is in charge of our non-fiction list.
Email: [email protected]
For more information on Translation and Publication Grants, visit our website.
A R G O S Y
F O Rwww.argosyagency.com
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A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
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A R G O S Y
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INDEX
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
PORTUGAL
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Manuel Jorge Marmelo10
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Uma mentira mil vezes repetida
Somos todos um bocado ciganos
Jorge Araujo11
Comandante Hussi
João Leal12
Alçapão
Fernando Sobral12
Ela cantava fados
Mário Zambujal13
Crónica dos bons malandros
Dama de espadas
Cafuné
Alexandra Lucas Coelho14
E a noite roda
Viva Mexico
Tahir
Caderno afegão
Virgilio Ferreira15
Aparição
Manhã submersa
Em nome da terra
Aquilino Ribeiro16
Cinco reis de gente
BRAZIL
Rodrigo Lacerda 18
Vista do Rio
O mistério do leão rampante
Outra vida
João Gilberto Noll19
Lorde
Godofredo de Oliveira Neto
19
Amores exilados
CATALONIA
Max Besora
Vulcano
Victor Nubla
El regal de Gliese
Salvador Giralt
L’Entrepà
Manel de la Rosa
Cada color d’un riu
Marc Romera
La mala vida
Tuli Márquez
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
L’endemà
22
23
23
24
25
25
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
CHILE
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Jodorowsky28
Alejandro
Donde mejor canta un pajaro
Hernán Castellano Girón29
Llamaradas de nafta
Alejandra Costamagna29
En voz baja
ARGENTINA
Serie del Recienvenido, edited by Ricardo Piglia
Germán García32
Nanina
Sylvia Molloy 33
En breve cárcel
Jorge di Paola 33
Minga!
Ana Basualdo 34
Oldsmobile 1962
C. E. Feiling 34
El mal menor
Nicolas Casullo35
Orificio
QUEBEC AND CANADA
Patrice Lessard38
Nina
Le sermon aux poissons
Nicolas Chalifour 39
Vu d’ici tout est petit
Gabriel Anctil 39
Sur la 132
Nelly Arcan 40
Paradis clef en main
Dominic C. Iannuzzi41
City of sinners
Penance is for the weak
Barry Webster42
Lava in my bones
Clint Burnham42
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
Smoke show
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PORTUGAL
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AA R R G GO OS YS
Y F O FR OE I R G E N I G
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R I R G I HG HT TS S
AA GG EE NN C C Y Y
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10
MANUEL JORGE MARMELO
Manuel Jorge Marmelo was born in Porto, in 1971. He started his career as a journalist in 1989,
working for the national daily newspaper Publico, and in 1996 received an honourable mention at
the Premios Gazeta de Jornalismo of the Clube de Jornalismo. His first published book O homem
que julgou morrer de amor (Campo das Letras) opened the series Campo de Estreia in 1996. He is
considered by critics as one of the most promising young Portuguese writers.
UMA MENTIRA MIL VEZES REPETIDA
SOMOS TODOS UM BOCADO CIGANOS
To escape the anonymity of an ordinary life, the solitude
of writing and the possible oblivion of ungrateful readers, the
narrator of this book creates his most monumental work of
fiction, The conquered city: a lie that he then tells a thousand
times. He creates the book from a collage of essays by Borges
and newspaper cuttings that he then pretends to read while
sitting on the bus. He invents a fictional author, Oscar Schidinski, a Hungarian Jew with an adventurous life and a myriad
of characters and stories that the narrator then tells enthusiastically to whoever sits next to him on public transportation.
The Great Romani Circus is like no other. It might seem like
a typical circus but it is not. The artists live precarious lives in
trailers and play different characters, like any other circus. They
are clowns and acrobats, magicians and animal tamers. The
circumstances of a brutal accident and a shady crime whose
victim is a singing donkey called Pavarotti provide the pretext
giving readers an in depth look into the characters populating
this particular circus, and their daily lives. The story goes on to
show the point of view of a teenage member of a family, who is
often isolated by the other circus people because of his gypsy
roots. His dream is to have a motorcycle to play daredevil. One
day he spies the beautiful trapeze artist and starts wondering
about the time when he will finally be able to date a woman
like a proper grown up.
A lie told a thousand times
We are all a bit gypsy
We are soon introduced to the main character of The
conquered city and his unusual stories; the tragedy of the zebra-man from Polvorosa; the chaos of the post office of Granada; the curse of the sailor Albrecht, and the memoirs of the
old man Afonso Cão.
As the bus approaches the village of Cedofeita, or passes
the street of Bolhão, whoever listens to the storyteller travels
from Belize to Budapest or passes through Honduras, secluded alpine resorts, Toulouse or Lisbon. At the end, even if our
narrator doesn’t encounter his sought after glory other than
his popularity among the few who had believed his lie - he
might have found love. Or is that a lie too?
UMA MENTIRA MIL VEZES REPETIDA
SOMOS TODOS UM BOCADO CIGANOS
Manuel Jorge Marmelo
Manuel Jorge Marmelo
A lie told a thousand times
We are all a bit gypsy
PUBLISHER: Quetzal
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2011
PAGES: 208
RIGHTS: World ex Brazil
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
PUBLISHER: Quetzal
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 144
RIGHTS: World ex Brazil
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JORGE ARAÚJO
Jorge Araújo was born in 1959 in the city of Mindelo, island of S. Vicente, Cape Verde. He started
as a television journalist and then went through a brief diplomatic career.
In Portugal he achieved his goal to be a reporter. He worked for O Independente, Já, Correio
da Manhã and TVI. He also worked in London for the BBC. He is currently an editor at Actual (weekly
supplement of Expresso). He also wrote O Dia em que a Noite se Perdeu and Nem tudo começa
com um beijo.
PEDRO SOUSA PEREIRA
Pedro Sousa Pereira was born in 1966 in Angola but raised in Porto (Portugal), he is a journalist
and illustrator. He also worked on a famous collection of porcelains for Vista Alegre, celebrating
Portuguese history and its traditions.
“Captain Hussi is a true and touching story. A boy who talks to
his bike: despite the war. “
Rita Pimenta in Mil Folhas (Publico, 2003)
“An African fable told in a universal language. [...] Captain
Hussi is, without doubt, mandatory reading, a sort of “the war
explained to children” whose reading is recommended to all
adults. A tale constructed through the relationship between a
boy (Hussi) and his bike allows the author [...] to hold us comfortably hanging from his own imagination. “
Ana Cristina Leonardo, Actual (Expresso, 2003)
Captain Hussi
Jorge Araújo
Illustrated by Pedro Sousa Pereira
PUBLISHER: Clube do autor
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2011
PAGES: 112
RIGHTS: Worldwide
SOLD TO: Brazil (Editora 34) and Spain
(Kalandra)
F O R E I G N
COMANDANTE HUSSI
Captain Hussi
Captain Hussi was a real person, born in Guinea-Bissau, on
the bank of a now dry river. He was only twelve when the war
shattered his world. He had to leave behind home, school,
family, friends and go the front line.
During the war, he dodged bombs and bullets, stumbled
on abandoned corpses and ate “one handful of air” a day. He
walked by human misery with the same innocence which he
used to ride his bicycle. This is, in fact, the leitmotif of the book:
the immaterial presence of the magical bicycle of the protagonist, which has the power to telepathically speak to the narrator and protect him and his troops from danger. So big is the
power of this bicycle that the local dictator demands its saddle
on a silver dish, creating panic in the narrator who puts his life
at risk by going back to his native village to save his beloved
friend, which he buried under his home before leaving for war.
COMANDANTE HUSSI
A R G O S Y
WINNER OF THE GULBENKIAN PRIZE
FOR CHILDREN’S LITERATURE IN 2003
The beautiful and amusing story of this boy and his bicycle during a civil war is the plot chosen by Jorge Araújo, and
turned into images by the stunning watercolors of Pedro Sousa
Pereira.
Delightfully intelligent, poetic and humorous, Captain Hussi
is a life lesson that is very hard to forget.
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FERNANDO SOBRAL
JOÃO LEAL
João Leal was born in Lisbon in
1973. He studied Theology but never completed the course. He’s been working in bookselling
and publishing since 1997 and between 2003 and 2005 kept
a blog called, Bicho Escala Estantes. He is married with two
children and lives in Sintra. Alçapão is his first novel and he is
now working on a second one.
Fernando Sobral is a Portuguese journalist who has worked
for many national newspapers including Semanário, O Independente and Diário Económico.
He was also managing editor of the weekly entertainment
magazine, Se7e. He still works for various prestigious Portuguese newspapers and has written the novels: Na Pista da
Dança and Torre de Papel. He also co-authored Barings, a
História do Banco Britânico que Salvou Portugal.
ALÇAPÃO
ELA CANTAVA FADOS
When Rodrigo reaches Saint John’s Orphanage he soon realizes that he will have to grow up quickly if he plans to survive
the code of violence that rules the lives of orphans. The arrival
of a new and unorthodox priest brings him a vision of hope that
promises to change everything. When Rodrigo leaves the institution to start a new life, a family curse emerges from the past.
A series of brutal killings will bring him and Jorge, his only friend
from Saint John’s, into a supernatural place hidden behind a
mysterious trapdoor.
Lisbon is a lot more than a city of shiny lights to attract the
tourists. Many untold secrets are hidden behind the romantic
facades of its buildings and walls of its modern palaces. Some
of these secrets are so dark that they can bring death to those
who would never have thought of it so early in life.
The Trapdoor
The fado singer
Adrift in the middle of the sea, the people of the floating
island of Lothar, believe they are the only survivors of the Great
Flood. In the middle of the island, inside a giant tree, lives a
fallen angel who they take for their god. One event, however,
will change everything and leave two of the island inhabitants
no choice but to leave.
Leal, in this homage to adventure and fantasy novels, brilliantly stirs together two distinct narratives, happening in different times in history, to finally join them again in what can be
seen as a decisive moment for the history of mankind.
When a young and very talented fado singer is found murdered, the detective Manuel da Rosa immediately finds himself
caught in an unknown world, even to a man like himself, who
fought many wars and had many solved cases under his belt.
Fado is not only melancholy. Fado is also revenge. It can
be connected to finance, in a world where everything has a
price because everything is for sale. Even love. From suspect
to suspect, the detective goes through a city that already lives
in the future but has never really been able to forget its past. A
city very similar to him. A man trapped between two worlds,
who is still not completely sure of what exactly is the nature of
his relationship with Ana Moreno, the only part of his past he
cannot forget...
ALÇAPÃO
ELA CANTAVA FADOS
João Leal
Fernando Sobral
The Trapdoor
The fado singer
PUBLISHER: Quetzal
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2011
PAGES: 272
RIGHTS: World ex Brazil
SAMPLE: English
PUBLISHER: Quetzal
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2011
PAGES: 304
RIGHTS: World ex Brazil
A R G O S Y
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MÁRIO ZAMBUJAL
Mário Zambujal is a Portuguese journalist and writer, born in 1936, who worked for television
and national papers like A Bola, Diário de Lisboa and Diário de Notícias.
CRÓNICA DOS BONS
MALANDROS
First published in 1980, the book
achieved such great literary success that
director Fernando Lopes turned it into a
movie in 1984, and a new edition of the
title was released in 2004.
The book chronicles the daily lives of
out of ordinary members of a gang that
refuse the use of weapons of any kind and
whose boss is nicknamed “the Peaceful”
due to his hatred of guns. This book follows
the lives of each individual member of the
gang (recounting how they met) while
they prepare for the robbery of a lifetime:
stealing a collection of Lalique jewelry
from the Gulbenkian museum in Lisbon.
Amusing and lighthearted, it is the story of
a gang of outsiders looking for a place in
this world.
“The movie based on the book was
directed by Fernando Lopes”
Chronicle of the good scoundrels
Mário Zambujal
CAFUNÉ
With an admirable narrative rhythm,
clear writing style and his usual dose of humor, Mário Zambujal introduces us to Eva
Teresa Lucas, aged eleven, and Philip, a
young man of eighteen, who is dating Eva
Teresa’s sister, Rosalia. There is an immediate empathy between young Eva Teresa
and Philip, but this is halted by the Lucas
family’s sudden move to Brazil. This obviously kills the relationship between Philip
and Rosalia and prevents Philip from continuing his friendship with Rosalia’s younger sister.
Cafuné, set in Lisbon in the 19th Century, revolves around the character of
Rodrigo Favinhas Mendes, a wise guy who
cannot resist a beautiful woman. Rodrigo
strikes up an unlikely friendship with a former friar, Urbino de Santiago, who ends
up being his advisor and spiritual guide.
The problem is that Rodrigo has a very big
heart: often occupied by many beautiful
women whom he cannot resist...
Queen of spades
Chronicle of the good scoundrels
CRÓNICA DOS BONS MALANDROS
DAMAS DE ESPADAS
During the years, through pictures and
videos that the two friends exchange, Philip comes to realize the nature of his feelings for Eva Teresa and decides to travel
to Brazil to find her. But the true reunion
only happens in Portugal, in Sintra, and
the beginning of their romance will often
be interrupted by unpredictable circumstances between the comedic and the
mysterious. Only in the last few pages will
the readers get to discover the outcome
of a story filled with surprises.
DAMAS DE ESPADAS
CAFUNÉ
Mário Zambujal
Mário Zambujal
Queen of spades
PUBLISHER: Clube do Autor
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2011
PAGES: 148
RIGHTS: World
SOLD TO: Catalonia (Alreves)
A R G O S Y
Cafuné
Cafuné
PUBLISHER: Clube do Autor
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 220
RIGHTS: World
F O R E I G N
PUBLISHER: Clube do Autor
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 244
RIGHTS: World
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ALEXANDRA LUCAS COELHO
Alexandra Lucas Coelho, born in 1967, studied theatre at the I.F.I.C.T. and then graduated
in Communication Science at Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Portugal). She worked for 10 years
in broadcasting and she still collaborates with the national radio, RTP. Since 1998 she has been
a journalist for the daily national newspaper Publico and has travelled the Middle East and
Central Asia many times, living for 6 months in Jerusalem as foreign correspondent. She has
won journalism awards from the Clube Português de Imprensa and Casa da Imprensa and the
Grande Prémio Gazeta 2005.
“The subtle lyricism of her sophisticated and elegant language, already belongs to a great writer.”
José Mário Silva, literary critic, Expresso
TAHIR- OS DIAS DA REVOLUÇÃO VIVA MEXICO
E A NOITE RODA
TAHIR- Os Dias da Revolução
Viva Mexico
And the night passes
The author was in Tahir square, she slept
there and from there saw Hasni Mubarak
falling from power and the whole country
celebrating.
It’s an account of the 3 weeks spent by
the journalist in Mexico. A country where
the horrors of Ciudad Juárez and the violence of narco-traffickers can be found
side by side with the amazing immensity of
Mexico City, with its murals painted by Diego Rivera and the blue houses described
by Frida Kahlo.
And the night passes tells the story of
Ana and Léon, a Catalan and a Belgian
who meet in Jerusalem and over a period
of two years, live a love story that stretches over three continents, from the Middle
East to the USA, passing through Europe.
This book is not a reportage, is the unpublished account of a day when a country tried to change its own destiny and the
whole world supported its revolutionary
spirit.
VIVA MEXICO
Viva Mexico
TAHIR- Os Dias da Revolução
Tahir- The days of the revolution
E A NOITE RODA
Alexandra Lucas Coelho
And the night passes
Alexandra Lucas Coelho
PUBLISHER: Tinta da China
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2011
PAGES: 144
RIGHTS: Worldwide
A R G O S Y
Alexandra Lucas Coelho
PUBLISHER: Tinta da China
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2010
PAGES: 369
RIGHTS: Worldwide
SOLD TO: Mexico
F O R E I G N
PUBLISHER: Tinta da China
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 248
RIGHTS: Worldwide
R I G H T S
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VIRGÍLIO FERREIRA
Vergílio Ferreira (1916-1997) is one of the great writers in the Portuguese language of the last century.
When his work was first translated into French by Gallimard and Métailié, reviewers compared him to Herman
Hesse. As a teenager, he studied in a seminary and later attended the University of Coimbra. His experiences
in the seminary are related in his most famous work Manhã Submersa (Misty Morning), published in 1953 and
made into a film in 1980 (which was also shown at the Barbican’s ‘Second UK Portuguese Film Festival’ in 2011).
He worked most of his life as a teacher in several places around Portugal and received various prestigious
awards such as the Femina Prize in France (1990), the Europália Prize (1991), and the Camões Prize (1992).
WINNER OF THE
PRIX FEMINA 1990
APARIÇÃO
Apparition
Apparition was first published in Portugal in 1959, marking the beginning of Virgilio Ferreira’s fame in his country.
The story is set in a small town south
of Lisbon, in the plains stretching over the
Tagus river. The story’s rhythm is set by the
school year and the seasons. The protagonist, young professor Alberto Soares, arrives in Évora, Alentejo, on his first assignment at the local high school. He slowly
comes into contact with the rigid society
of the province by meeting the family of
Dr. Moura, an old friend of his father. From
this moment Ferreira builds a story that can
hardly be forgotten, and confirms the success on the international scene of a book
that is considered, together with Os Maias
by Eça de Queirós and Memorial do Convento by José Saramago, to be one of the
10 most important Portuguese novels.
APARIÇÃO
MANHÃ SUBMERSA
Misty morning
This is the autobiographical tale of a young
man studying to become a priest, who goes
through a process of self-awakening that eventually will question his faith and lead him to go
out of the seminary and into the world. Set between the austerities of the house of Ms. Estefania, the temptations lying in his native village
in the mountains of Portugal, and the silence
of the walls of the seminary, the story unfolds
around the experiences and feelings that the
young seminarist is going through during his journey. Amid the darkness, sadness and hardness
of the seminary, the protagonist discovers the
world around him: the repressive education, the
poverty of the land, social inequalities, physical
desire, the camaraderie, friendship and, finally,
love.
The movie directed by Lauro António, was nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Academy
Awards in 1981.
In the name of the Earth
The book, originally published in 1991
by Bertrand, is one of Ferreira’s last and
most accomplished novels, where he explores themes of love, loss, and old age.
Written as a letter to his dead wife, Mónica, its main character is a retired judge
living at a rest home. Despite the atmosphere of decrepitude surrounding him, the
old judge clings on to life; he writes to his
dead wife, interspersing passionate memories of their life together with present reflections on his failing body and episodes
at the rest home where his children have
left him to ‘slowly rot’.
EM NOME DA TERRA
In the name of the Earth
MANHÃ SUBMERSA
Apparition
EM NOME DA TERRA
Virgílio Ferreira
Misty morning
Virgílio Ferreira
Virgílio Ferreira
PUBLISHER: Quetzal
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2009
PAGES: 276
RIGHTS: World ex Brasil
SAMPLE: English
SOLD TO: France (Métailié), Italy (Besa),
Spain (Cátedra), Russia, Poland
A R G O S Y
PUBLISHER: Quetzal
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2011
PAGES: 192
RIGHTS: World ex Brazil and Spain
SOLD TO: France (La Différence)
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
PUBLISHER: Quetzal
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 272
SAMPLE: English
RIGHTS: World ex Brazil and Spain
SOLD TO: Spain (Acantilado) and France
(Gallimard)
A G E N C Y
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AQUILINO RIBEIRO
Aquilino Ribeiro (1885-1963) Praised by critics and readers, he is considered as one of the great
Portuguese novelists of the 20th century. Among his notable books are Jardim das Tormentas (collection of short stories), A Casa Grande de Romarigães (his most famous work) and Quando os
lobos uivam (about the opposition to dictatorship). He was nominated for the Nobel Literature
Prize in 1960 and lived in Paris and London. He was involved in the opposition to António de Oliveira
Salazar and the Estado Novo, whose government tried to censor or ban several of his books.
CINCO REIS DE GENTE
Little scrap of a man
The book, first published in 1948, chronicles in first person
the life of the author as a child with his family in a northern region of Portugal. Many are the characters that fill this book:
Aunt Custodia, whose contagious niceness could charm anybody even though her looks were never attractive; the dog
Barzabú, loyal companion of adventures; the father of the
narrator, thanks to whom we have a glimpse of how political
campaigns were carried out in small villages; Ms. Teolinda, the
teacher constantly fighting to teach her pupils how to read in
a time when the common idea was that school was only good
for the rich because the poor were too busy working; Maria
Loia, who breaks the heart of the young narrator; and finally
the bear Mariana, main attraction of a circus of gypsies visiting
the village, always sad and tied up but able to do the most
amazing tricks. Through hilarious adventures in the countryside
and the descriptions of the complex (from the point of view
of a child) relations between members of the same family, the
author gives us a sharp insight into the social dynamics of life in
a small village in the mid 20th century, keeping as background
local folklore and beliefs, and shows us a simple society who
believed in values that have long been forgotten.
CINCO REIS DE GENTE
Little scrap of a man
Aquilino Ribeiro
PUBLISHER: Bertrand
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 1985
PAGES: 212
RIGHTS: World ex Brazil
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A G E N C Y
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RODRIGO LACERDA
Rodrigo Lacerda (Rio de Janeiro, 1969) is a writer, editor, translator and historian. He has worked in publishing for many years and won several translation awards for his translations from French. He is a professor of
Literary Theory and History of Literature in São Paulo. His books have been widely acclaimed by critics. He also
published a novel for young adults, O fazedor de velhos (2008), that won the Prize for Best Children’s Book from
the Biblioteca Nacional, a Jabuti Prize and the FNLIJ Award.
VISTA DO RIO
O MISTÉRIO DO LEÃO RAMPANTE
Image of Rio
The mystery of the rampant lion
The book chronicles the friendship
between Marco Aurélio and Virgílio: their
growing up in disrupted families of the upper middle class in Estrela de Ipanema,
a building in Rio which is a landmark of
modernist architecture, and their subsequent maturity which leads the friends to
gradually grow apart. One marries, has
a daughter, divorces and lives a bureaucratic and ordinary life. The other becomes a well-known artist, rich and full of
enthusiasm. In the 90’s, the friends meet
again. One of them has a fatal disease,
and asks the other to stay with him in the
hospital, for a last hope treatment. The
gap between modern architecture and
the reality of the country, the city of Rio de
Janeiro and its contradictions, are some of
the themes that accompany the dramas
experienced by the characters.
England, 17th century. A spell prevents
a young member of the landed gentry from
conceiving an heir. She tries in vain to get
rid of the spell until one day a witch discovers the source of the spell: the coat of
King Henry V. Following this track, the young
aristocrat and her entire family, including
her husband, decide to travel to London,
the heart of the British Renaissance. There,
during the staging of Shakespeare’s Henry
V, the young lady gets to meet the playwright, William Shakespeare, and, through
the magical power of the theatre, all their
beliefs on people and society are forever
changed.
Foreword by João Ubaldo Ribeiro
Finalist at the Zaffari & Bordon, Portugal
Telecom e Jabuti Prize in 2005
“I use the word ‘talent’ parsimoniously, and
so I can fairly say that Rodrigo Lacerda has a
great deal of talent. The Mystery of the Rampant Lion is an extraordinary exercise in literary
sensitivity, and its author’s control over his prose
is of a rare order.”
OUTRA VIDA
Another life
7:15 a.m. A man, a woman and their
5 year old daughter are waiting to board
the bus that will take them back to the
small seaside town where they came
from. With this journey, the husband hopes
to start a new life after the time spent in
the big cruel city. They ran away from the
capital chased by the ghosts of the past,
in the attempt to put back together the
crumbles of their own common project.
Winner of the Brazilian Academy of Letters
Novel Award in 2010 and second place in
the Brazilian National Library and Portugal
Telecom.
João Ubaldo Ribeiro
WINNER OF THE JABUTI PRIZE IN 1996
OUTRA VIDA
Another life
O MISTÉRIO DO LEÃO RAMPANTE
VISTA DO RIO
Rodrigo Lacerda
The mystery of the rampant lion
Image of Rio
Rodrigo Lacerda
Rodrigo Lacerda
PUBLISHER: Cosac & Naify
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2004
PAGES: 199
SAMPLE: English
RIGHTS: Worldwide
A R G O S Y
PUBLISHER: Alfaguara
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2009
PAGES: 184
RIGHTS: World
SOLD TO: Spain (Libros de Pizarra) and
Portugal (Quetzal)
French translation available
PUBLISHER: Ateliê Editorial
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2006
PAGES: 158
RIGHTS: World
SOLD TO: Italy (Fanucci)
English translation available
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////////////////BRAZIL
JOÃO GILBERTO NOLL
João Gilberto Noll was born in
Porto Alegre in 1946. He is the author of thirteen books, among them O cego e a dançarina
(1980), A fúria do corpo (1981), Bandoleiros (1985), and Lorde
(2012), all published by Record. He has won more than ten
literary awards, including the Jabuti Prize in 1981, 1994, 1997,
2004, and 2005. His novel Harmada (Companhia das Letras,
1993) made Bravo! magazine’s list of 100 essential Brazilian
books of all time. Noll has been published in Argentina, England, and Italy.
19
GODOFREDO
DE OLIVEIRA NETO
He has worked as a journalist at Folha da manhã and
Última hora and as a contributor to the newspaper Correio
braziliense.
Godofredo de Oliveira Neto,
is a professor and an award-winning writer. Born in Blumenau, in
the Santa Catarina state, in 1951, he then moved to Rio and
subsequently studied in France, at the Sorbonne. He teaches
at the UFRJ in Rio and has written, among other works, O
Bruxo do Contestado –according to the newspaper Folha de
São Paulo, one of the ten most important works of 1996- and
Menino oculto, which won a second place at the Jabuti Prize
in 2006. All his books have reached notable success by both
critics and the public and have been recommended readings in many universities.
LORDE
AMORES EXILADOS
Lord
Loves in exile
Lorde tells the story of a fifty-year-old writer with seven published books and a single wish: to live beyond the pages of his
works and free himself from his image as a writer. He lands in
London at the invitation of an Englishman he doesn’t know,
who sets him up in an apartment in Hackney, a neighbourhood
of immigrants. When the stranger who extended the invitation
dies, the Brazilian decides that he needs to be an English citizen
himself. Following the literary tradition of Beckett and Musil, in
this unsettling tale of lost identity the author brings the reader
to a world where crime, aberration and oddity are not that uncommon.
In this book (originally released in 1997 with the title Pedaço
de santo), Fábio and Catarina are two Brazilians coming from
totally different regions, Bahia de Lázaro and Florianópolis, who
are forced to leave the country in the years of military government and move to France, only to share a rootless existence in
exile with Muriel, a French woman who is living in a self-imposed
exile from her own past.
“A book of guns and roses, which deserves to be
read and acclaimed.”
Virgílio Moretzsohn, O Globo
LORDE
Lord
AMORES EXILADOS
Loves in exile
PUBLISHER: Francis
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2004
PAGES: 114
RIGHTS: Europe, English Language
SOLD TO: Argentina (Adriana Hidalgo Editora)
PUBLISHER: Record
LANGUAGE: Portuguese
YEAR: 2011
PAGES: 240
RIGHTS: Europe, English language
João Gilberto Noll
A R G O S Y
Godofredo de Oliveira Neto
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
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A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
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CATALONIA
03
AA R R G GO OS YS
Y F O FR OE I R G E N I G
N
R I R G I HG HT TS S
AA GG EE NN C C Y Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
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22
MAX BESORA
Max Besora (1980, Barcelona) studied the trumpet at the Music Conservatory of Barcelona. He
worked in a warehouse, a videogame shop, as a hotel receptionist and even sold sport articles, and
herbal products. For the past three years he has been working as a teacher of Catalan and Castillian
for foreigners. In 2008 he won the Prize Benet Ribas for poetry for L’espectre elec-tromagnètic and used
the money to pay for his university course.
VULCANO
Volcano
The village of San Pancraci del Paradís, situated on the
slopes of a volcano, had to be evacuated. A man with a hallucinating mind decides to stay in the village and observe
the slow destruction of everything surrounding him and, ultimately, is able to stare in front of his naked soul. Delirium,
loneliness, disillusion, chaos and a warm hope of redemption
accompany the protagonist on his descent to hell.
Max Besora’s book, clearly influenced by the work of Malcolm Lowry, is a disturbing and uncompromising piece of literature on the battle between reason and madness, between
word and chaos. A frightening look into the end of the world.
The author creates a contemporary hero who faces the
difficulties of everyday life with humour and irreverent apathy, projecting on the reader the shadow of a confused and
frantic mind. Volcano, following the tradition of the genre, can
be read as a modern katabasis, where hell ceases to be a
geographical space and turns into a product of one’s own
subjectivity.
“Vulcano is a sincere and provoking book, a fast read that
doesn’t want to offer great revelations but only a good dose
of refreshing sarcasm that gives some oxygen in a scene currently dominated by mediatic literature.”
Alex Reig, Revista de Letras
VULCANO
Volcano
Max Besora
PUBLISHER: LaBreu Edicions
LANGUAGE: Catalan
YEAR: 2011
PAGES: 110
SAMPLE: English
RIGHTS: World
Spanish version available
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////////////CATALONIA
23
S A L VA D O R G I R A L T
VICTOR NUBLA
Victor Nubla (1956, Barcelona),
is a musician and a writer. He has
published many non-fiction books, short stories, poems and
opinion columns in several newspapers and magazines. He
is a composer of music for movies and theatres. El regal de
Gliese is his first novel.
Salvador
Giralt
(Barcelona,
1954). He studied matemathics at
the University of Barcelona and theatre at the Casona Academy directed by Fernando Grifell.
Author of poetry and novels, in 2008 he won the Prize Punyal
de Vic with the collection of poems Romanço de l’Ambros i
del seu tros. President of the Association of Friends of the Migdiada, he takes very seriously all matters concerning dreams,
deep sleep and the dreamlike effects of modern literature.
EL REGAL DE GLIESE
L’ENTREPÀ
Gliese’s gift
Sandwich
During a warm August night in the neighbourhood of Carmel, the writer Sebastià Janowsky finds the dead body of one
of the guests of a private party he was attending. After a few
minutes Sebastià is unconscious. He wakes up in an unknown
apartment next to the dead body. His documents are missing
and a bundle of notes have been placed in his pocket. This
is the beginning of El regal de Gliese, a novel, suspended between crime and science fiction, populated by eccentric artists
and amateur detectives.
A 80 m2 bar in the center of Manresa, a boring job preparing sandwiches, an extraordinary woman, Elionor, with whom
to share a normal life and a heavenly routine, three normal
children and the usual customers. This is all the protagonist, a
man in his sixties who had never set foot outside Catalonia,
ever had.
Recommended to those interested in intergalactic conspiracies, experimental drugs bringing unexpected effects, the
interior monologues of a Belgian Sheppard and the uncertain
fate of a rumba singer. The book is a perfect mix of Philip K. Dick
and Mort & Phil: only taking place during a festival in the bohemian area of Gracia, in Barcelona.
“An exaltation of friendship hiding behind a curtain of intelligent and lighthearted humour, where contingencies are what
trigger the action and science fiction is only an excuse to
describe the reality of everyday that, although full of complications, has to keep going.”
Cristina Carbonell, El Diario
Elionor, a rather restless and unpredictable woman with a
passion for giving extravagant gifts, one day decides to bring
two dueling pistols to her husband. He then hides them in his
sandwich bar.
The years pass quietly and in a state of relative happiness,
the children finally become independent, and the couple find
themselves alone. On Friday evening he arrives home to a
locked door, behind which there is no dinner ready on the table and, most of all, no more wife. She eventually comes back
late at night to declare that her chance has finally come and
that she will be a famous actress. After a couple of days she
leaves a note and disappears.
Abandoned, betrayed and confused, he starts spending
all his time in his sandwich bar working on a recipe to make the
best sandwiches in Catalonia.
A story about the fragility and unpredictability of human
relationships, the love for small things and how determination
can be the key to salvation.
EL REGAL DE GLIESE
Gliese’s gift
L’ENTREPÀ
Sandwich
PUBLISHER: Males Herbes
LANGUAGE: Catalan
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 160
RIGHTS: World
Spanish version available
PUBLISHER: LaBreu
LANGUAGE: Catalan
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 164
RIGHTS: World
English and Spanish sample
Victor Nubla
A R G O S Y
Salvador Giralt
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
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24
MANEL DE LA ROSA
Manel de la Rosa (Barcelona, 1961) is a professor at the School of Writing of the Athenaeum of
Barcelona, where he currently teaches Narrative Techniques and Novel Writing. He combines writing
and teaching with activities such as guitar luthier and developer of open source software. His writing is
inspired by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Italo Calvino, Gao Xingjian and Paul Theroux, and by visual works such as
Richard Avedon’s portrait photography or the graphic novels of Peter Milligan.
WINNER OF THE FNAC NEW
TALENTS AWARD (2013)
CADA COLOR D’UN RIU
A river has different colours
Alex and Minkara are two lonely children united by a special bond. One day a traumatic event (the accidental death of
her parents and his father) will break their friendship and put
an end to their childhood.
Ten years later, Alex had become a person who detached
himself from any sort of emotions. Things change when he
meets Sigurd, a sarcastic Danish guy, and Xenia, a determined yet unpredictable girl. Meanwhile, Minkara reappears
into Alex’s life thinking that maybe, now that they are adults,
she could fix their relationship. Alex soon starts to have feelings for Minkara that he thought he could never experience
and she feeds his hopes until it becomes clear that she’s devoured by an old and poisonous obsession that threatens to
destroy their lives.
“It’s worth diving in this river.”
Ricard Ruiz Garzón, El Pais
“Cada color d’un riu is a book about feelings
and emotions, which revolves around the inner
worlds of the characters.”
The title refers to the different options we can choose in
life and the fact that, although the events can influence our
decisions, we always have a choice and each one of us can
pick something different. An intimistic novel that drives the
characters into the abyss that separates redemption from
the dangerous attraction of death.
Cristina Carbonell, El diari de la cultura (El
Diario)
CADA COLOR D’UN RIU
A river has different colours
Manel de la Rosa
PUBLISHER: Periscopi
LANGUAGE: Catalan
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 248
SAMPLE: Spanish
RIGHTS: World
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
25
////////////////////CATALONIA
TULI MÁRQUEZ
MARC ROMERA
Marc Romera (Barcelona, 1966)
is a professor of Language and Literature and an editor. He has collaborated with several radio
stations and worked as a literary critic for Quadern (El Pais). In
1986 he won the poetry prize Gabriel Ferrater.
Tuli Márquez (Barcelona, 1962)
graduated in 1985 in Journalism at
the Universitat Autónoma of Barcelona. He then started to work for television, doing trailers for TV
shows, TV movies and programmes. Now he is dedicating all his
time to writing. L’Endemá is his first novel.
MALA VIDA
L’ENDEMÁ
Bad life
The day after
Mala vida is going to impress readers for its style, characters, the city of Barcelona that is portrayed in the book, the
story itself and, finally, for the shocking end. Marc Romera describes three days in the life of H., a young man who is afraid
of commitment and rejects any sort of involvement with both
people and situations. His failure as a painter is almost a metaphor for the failure of his whole existence. It certainly evokes
the failure of an entire generation of aimless and disillusioned
individuals, cradled in a life that is so easy on them that it risks
becoming boring. Narrated with an ironic tone, it is the tale of
a generation whose only motivation in life is partying, taking
pills, drinking, having sex and diving into all sorts of extreme experiences. A funny and caustic novel, deeply literary, that reveals Marc Romera as one of the most promising and personal
voices of contemporary Catalan literature.
“Gratuitous violence, eroticism, moral fatigue, war against the
empire of appearances, the silliness of many poets, the area
of Raval in Barcelona, the shops of Pakistanis, the mediocrity
of many characters around us: Romera’s literature is one of
denunciation.”
Rai, Max and Charlie are the members of the Les Roques,
the most famous rock group in the country, with thirty years of
history and over six million records sold. Since they began playing together in high school they have managed to stay on top
of the charts thanks to their talent and cool aggressive attitude.
They also have the support of their families: Maria, mother of
Max, and Karen, mother of Charlie, are the founding partners
of Olympus Productions, the agents for the band. The date of
their latest concert at the Olympic Stadium is fast approaching
and the Rai, the group leader, has disappeared. Meanwhile his
manager is too busy playing golf with his wife and Carmen, an
attractive lady who caught his attention.
L’Endemá is a fast paced novel that touches a range of
subjects like family, friendship, success and loyalty. As David
Bowie would say, “Why would I want TV, if I have the T. Rex?”.
Rock’n’roll.
Jordi Llavina, writer, poet, literary critic.
“Marc Romera, the author of one of the best novels of the
past couple of years: Mala Vida.”
Pere Guixà, author of No pots sentir-ho.
MALA VIDA
Bad life
L’ENDEMÁ
The day after
PUBLISHER: Angle Editorial
LANGUAGE: Catalan
YEAR: 2004
PAGES: 160
RIGHTS: World
PUBLISHER: Periscopi
LANGUAGE: Catalan
YEAR: 2013
PAGES: 200
RIGHTS: World
Tuli Márquez
Marc Romera
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
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A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
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CHILE
04
AA R R G GO OS YS
Y F O FR OE I R G E N I G
N
R I R G I HG HT TS S
AA GG EE NN C C Y Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
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28
ALEJANDRO JODOROWSKI
Alejandro Jodorowsky (1930, Chile), is the son of Ukrainian Jewish immigrants. From an early age
he became interested in mime and theater and at the age of 23 he left for Paris, where he has lived
ever since. A friend and companion of Fernando Arrabal and Roland Topor, he founded the Panic
movement and has directed several ‘cult’ films including Holy Mountain, El Topo and Santa Sangre (all
of them now released on DVD by Abcko Films, New York). Mime artist, specialist in the art of tarots and
prolific author, he has written novels, poetry, short stories, essays and over thirty successful comic books,
working with such highly regarded comic book artists as Moebius and Bess. Donde mejor canta un
pájaro, El niño del jueves negro and Albina y los hombres perro are among his best-known novels (sold
in France, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Spain, Netherlands and Russia). Influenced by his fascination with the
tarot, his years spent working in theatre and by his experiences of psychoanalysis (he himself underwent
analysis with Erich Fromm), he has also created his own particular brand of therapeutic practice - a
mixture of modern psychotherapy and shamanism which he first presented in his book: Psicomagia: El
Teatro de la curación. Una terapia pánica, allegedly providing the reader with remedies to help mend
‘flawed lives’.
DONDE MEJOR CANTA UN PÁJARO
Where a bird sings better
Teresa, the grandmother of the narrator, got angry at God and at those who had faith in him after the
terrifying flood of the river Dniepr that killed her favorite son. The misfortunate had pushed a cabinet into the
courtyard and he had climbed on top of it, but due to its weight (it contained 37 tractates of the Talmud) it
didn’t float.
This is how the incredible story of a Chilean family of Ukrainian origins begins, a story filled with mythical and
real ancestors, were readers are taken travelling through time to unveil the most comic and scandalous stories
in a bizarre world inhabited by ancestors always covered in bees, women who have a special connection with
wolves, snake charmers and even anarchist attackers.
First published in 1992, this visionary family saga owes its title to Jean Cocteau’s ingenious reflection: “A bird
sings best on its family tree”. This book, where heroism and legend are observed through the prism of caricature
and parody, is the definitive demonstration that, for extraordinary personalities like Jodorowsky, talent seethes
in overwhelming density when compared to the number of authors who fail in their attempt to transmit their
interest in their roots to the reader.
A great tale, written by a great writer that brings together the grace and poetry of yiddish stories with the
magical realism typical of Latin America literature to create the perfect semblance for a man’s search of his
roots.
DONDE MEJOR CANTA UN PÁJARO
Where a bird sings better
Alejandro Jodorowsky
PUBLISHER: Siruela
LANGUAGE: Spanish
YEAR: 2002
PAGES: 318
English language rights represented on behalf of Casanovas & Lynch
SOLD TO: Chile (Hachette); Mexico (Grijalbo); Spain (Editorial Seix Barral; Siruela); Portugal
(Oficina do Livro); Argentina (Editorial Planeta); Italy (Feltrinelli); France (Metailié); Germany (Suhrkamp); Netherlands (Arena); Brazil (Planeta Brazil)
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////QUEBEC AND CANADA
38
P AT R I C E L E S S A R D
Patrice Lessard was born in Louiseville, Quebec in 1971. Le sermon aux poissons, his first
novel, was one of the finalists at the Ringuet Prize in 2012. He currently lives between France,
Portugal and Italy. He’s now working on his next book, set in Italy.
NINA
LE SERMON AUX POISSONS
Nina
A few years ago, Antoine decided to move from Quebec
to Portugal. He has now been missing for one year. His brother, Vincent, decides to go to Lisbon with his girlfriend Nina,
who speaks Portuguese, to find him. Nina knows the city very
well but the search of Antoine soon proves to be more difficult than predicted. There are almost no leads. One day,
they accidentally run into Gill, a private detective, who seems
confident in his ability to help them. The detective, who’s far
from rolling in money, had previously been hired by a gang of
small local thugs to recover a gun that had been lost during a
robbery. The routes of the three seem to be all leading in the
same direction and Vincent and Nina will soon be dragged
by Gill in a complicated maze of intrigues, strange encounters
and misleading tracks.
Antoine is a quebecois who decides to go on holiday in
Lisbon. There, he loses his mobile phone during a night spent
drinking in the bars of a maze-like Lisbon. The book chronicles
two days in the life of Antoine: the loss of the phone and the
investigation run by the protagonist to find it.
Divided in two parts, one told by an external narrator and
another in first person, Nina follow the narrative tradition of
Nabokov’s The real life of Sebastian Knight. Through a carefully planned structure, where conflicting clues are suggested
along the story, the book keeps the reader in a constant state
of uncertainty, where the line between truth and lie is completely blurred and, maybe, that is precisely what makes the
story credible.
“One of the big surprises of this literary season. Patrice
Lessard alternates daytime and nighttime scenes with rare
virtuosity to blur the line between the present and the past.”
Martine Desjardins, L’Actualité
Nina
LE SERMON AUX POISONS
Le sermon aux poisons
PUBLISHER: Héliotrope
LANGUAGE: French
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 397
RIGHTS: World
PUBLISHER: Héliotrope
LANGUAGE: French
YEAR: 2011
PAGES: 272
RIGHTS: World
NINA
P a tr i ce L e ss a rd
P a tr i ce L e s s a rd
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////QUEBEC AND CANADA
39
GABRIEL ANCTIL
N I C O L AS C H A L I F O U R
Nicolas Chalifour (Quebec
City, 1970) has lived in Toronto,
Montreal and its suburbs. His second novel, Variétés Delphi,
was published in 2012 by Héliotrope.
Gabriel Anctil (Montreal, 1979)
is a guy who, one day, decided to
quit his job and move to Bas-duFleuve, in Quebec. Sur la 132 is his first novel.
VU D’ICI TOUT EST PETIT
SUR LA 132
Variétés Delphi
On the road 132
A little creature (a sort of gnome) lurking in the shadows of
a manor observes the lives of people inside: the kitchen staff,
the butler, the waiters, the maids, the director and the clients.
Each day, this very determined creature goes into the building
to rummage through the rooms and cellars, discovering a new
world.
Theo works in advertising. One day the world he is so used
to, starts to feel too tight. He leaves everything and moves to
a small cottage in Trois-Pistoles, 500 km from Montreal. A novel
of initiation but at the same time a novel of atmosphere and
characters, Sur la 132 describes the universe where Theo tries
to re-invent himself, the great spaces of Quebec and its wild
nature, populated by unique characters that help keep up the
incredible rhythm of this road trip. This book is a story about different generations of people and social realities in a fantastic
region that is often left unexplored by both tourists and locals.
He examines the world of the manor in great detail, seeing
the ridiculousness of rich people and their perversity.
Through the fluid and wriggling rhythm of the narrative, told
from the perspective of a small creature who transforms into
an adventurous knight after dark (to defend the honour of his
favourite waitress), Chalifour shows us a surprising angle on the
microcosm of the manor.
WINNER OF THE QUEBEC BOOKSELLERS’
PRIZE 2010
“A mixture between Jack Kerouac’s On the road for the story
and Michel Tremblay for the language (the use of slang), On
the road 132 is however a unique and easy read. [...]
On the road 132, like its author, inspires curiosity for the taste of
adventure and is a nice tribute, with its very direct descriptions
of reality, to the region of Quebec.”
Gabrielle Brassard-Lecours, Le Plateau-Culture
Vu d’ici tout est petit was included in l’Actualité
magazine’s list of
‘35 new voices shaking Quebec literature’.
VU D’ICI TOUT EST PETIT
SUR LA 132
One the road 132
Nicolas Chalifour
Gabriel Anctil
PUBLISHER: Héliotrope
LANGUAGE: French
YEAR: 2009
PAGES: 216
RIGHTS: World
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
PUBLISHER: Héliotrope
LANGUAGE: French
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 520
RIGHTS: World
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////QUEBEC AND CANADA
40
N E L LY A R C A N
Nelly Arcan (Lac Mégantic, 1973-Montreal, 2009). Her first novel Putain (Éditions Du Seuil,
2003), drawing on her experience working in the sex trade in Montreal, caused a sensation and
enjoyed immediate critical and media success. It was a finalist for both the Prix Médicis and
the Prix Femina, two of France’s most prestigious literary awards. The two novels that followed,
Folle (Seuil, 2004), and À ciel ouvert (Seuil, 2007), established her as a literary star in Quebec
and France. She is also the author of an illustrated book on the beauty myth for young girls,
L’enfant dans le miroir (Marchand de Feuilles, 2007). Paradis, clef en main (Coups de Tête,
2009) was her fourth novel and was completed just days before she committed suicide in 2009
at the age of thirty-six.
“Dark, beautiful, poignant and clever, Arcan’s Exit
is a powerful read.”
PARADIS, CLEF EM MAIN
Exit
Lisa Foad, The Globe and Mail
Somewhere in Montreal, in the not too distant future, an
obscure company called ‘Paradis, clef en main’ offers custom-designed suicides for its clients with one condition: their desire to die must be pure and absolute and this has to be tested
though a series of inexplicable interviews. A child born of artificial insemination, now in her early 30s, Antoinette Beauchamp
has been paralyzed following a botched suicide attempt performed by the company. Confined to a hospital bed, she is
cared for by her fashionista mom who visits every day bringing
jugs of vodka and orange juice so her daughter can sink into
oblivion at will. Meanwhile, she tells her story for posterity, every
gesture followed by a surveillance camera her mother has set
up in the hospital room.
“A powerful argument for suicide as a human
right, Exit is also strangely life-affirming.”
Marianne Ackerman, Rover
While the mother loves her daughter resolutely, Antoinette
loathes the woman who forced her into being and dreams
of crushing her. Suicide is something of a family tradition. The
narrator’s grandfather took his life in a conventional way for a
psychologically coherent cause: grief. Her uncle Léon did it for
more complex, possibly temperamental reasons, a sense that
life was a prison sentence, and enlisted the services of ‘Paradis,
clef en main’. Sensing a kindred spirit in the child Antoinette, he
left her enough money to take the same road out should her
desire for escape someday overcome the will to carry on.
PARADIS, CLEF EM MAIN
This is where the novel finds its energy, as the helpless Antoinette is forced to cope with quest-like tribulations in her pursuit
of death, taking the reader into the Kafkaesque world of the
company and its bewildering cast of characters. Exit is at once
a profound examination of what it is that drives someone to
want to end their life, as well as how that urge can be turned
on its head against all odds. Written with her signature brio and
acerbic wit, Nelly Arcan’s last novel is a hymn to life.
Exit
Nelly Arcan
PUBLISHER: Coups de Tête
LANGUAGE: French
YEAR: 2009
PAGES: 224
RIGHTS: World
SOLD TO: English for Canada (Anvil Press)
Full English text available (translated by David Scott Hamilton)
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////QUEBEC AND CANADA
41
DOMINIC C. IANNUZZI
Dominic C. Iannuzzi is a Montreal writer and an unabashed news and history junkie. Born and
raised in Montreal’s Italian north-end, he brings a unique perspective to the political and language
debate that has raged in Quebec since the 1960s. D.C. Iannuzzi earned an MBA and a Bachelor of
Engineering degree at Concordia University and, when he’s not contemplating the darkness that
lurks in men’s souls, he earns his living as an Investment Advisor. City of Sinners is his first novel, and
was officially launched at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival in May 2008.
CITY OF SINNERS
PENANCE IS FOR THE WEAK
In this well-crafted suspense novel D.C. Iannuzzi takes
readers on a wild ride, as authorities attempt to thwart a
bomb threat instigated by an anonymous terrorist group
dead-set against the Quebec government’s repressive anti-English language laws.
In this sequel to City of Sinners, D.C. Iannuzzi confirms his
shameless devotion to the film noir genre, weaving a tale of corrosive greed, blind ambition and ruthless retribution. Julie Vadnais, an attractive and determined young reporter, confronts the
murky realms of municipal politics and organized crime in her
crusade to uncover the truth. Montreal Police Detective Johnny
Emory once again leads the police investigation, hurtling down
a collision course with the illicit world he grew up in.
The terrorists send a letter to detective Johnny Emory.
The letter warns Emory that they intend to do violence in
the name of the all minorities living in Quebec ostensibly to
motivate the French ruling class to abandon laws that make
discrimination against minorities part of the legitimate legal
structure of Quebec. Naturally this precipitates an investigation which is politically charged and hazardous to negotiate.
Iannuzzi turns Quebec separation debate on its head in
this fascinating tale, where extremist political rhetoric has
been allowed to fester and the line between good and evil
has been blurred. Iannuzzi’s characters are interesting, personable and well drawn, his style is tight, lean and very clean.
Shortlisted for the F. G. Bressani Literary Prize
(Vancouver 2012)
An incredibly current political thriller novel,
dealing with controversial issues such as separatism, struggle for independence and the claims
of ethnic minorities.
CITY OF SINNERS
PENANCE IS FOR THE WEAK
PUBLISHER: Longbridge Books
LANGUAGE: English
YEAR: 2008
PAGES: 212
RIGHTS: World
PUBLISHER: Longbridge Books
LANGUAGE: English
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 244
RIGHTS: World
Dominic C. Iannuzzi
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
D o m i n i c C . I an n u z z i
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////QUEBEC AND CANADA
BARRY WEBSTER
42
CLINT BURNHAM
Barry Webster’s first book, The
Sound of All Flesh (Porcupine’s
Quill), won the ReLit Award for best
short-story collection in 2005. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award, the CBCQuebec Prize, and the Hugh
MacLennan Award. Originally from Toronto, he currently lives
in East Montreal.
LAVA IN MY BONES
Clint Burnham is a Vancouver
writer and critic. He teaches in the
English department at Simon Fraser
University and is the author of many books, including the novel
Smoke Show (Arsenal Pulp), the poetry collections The Benjamin Sonnets (Bookthug) and Rental Van (Anvil), and the literary theory book The Jamesonian Unconscious (Duke University
Press).
SMOKE SHOW
A frustrated Canadian geologist studying global warming
becomes obsessed with eating rocks after embarking on his first
same-sex relationship in Europe. Back home, his young sister is a
high-school girl who suddenly starts to ooze honey through her
pores, an affliction that attracts hordes of bees as well as her
male classmates but ultimately turns her into a social pariah.
Meanwhile, their obsessive Pentecostal mother repeatedly calls
on the Holy Spirit to rid her family of demons. The siblings are
reunited on a ship bound for Europe where they hope to start
a new life, but are unaware that their disguised mother is also
on board and plotting to win back their souls, with the help of
the Virgin Mary.
Told in a lush baroque prose, this intense, extravagant magic-realist novel combines elements of fairy tales, horror movies,
and romances to create a comic, hallucinatory celebration of
excess and sensuality.
Lambda Literary Award and Ferro-Grumley
Award for LGBT Fiction Finalist
A doll is taped to the hood of a wedding car. A list of favourite cocktails from the eighties. Hide the drugs from your
parents and your kids. Kevin Costner in Waterworld: hot or not?
Smoke Show is a novel that will astound readers with its audacious, stripped-down narrative set in the mid-nineties about
assorted f**k-ups, diehards, and lost souls, seen through a hazy
filter of bus fumes and cigarette smoke. Told in “real time,”
Smoke Show is raw, candid, amorphous; told through jargon
and petty dialogue commonly heard in the street or on public
transit, Smoke Show is a novel told in conversation. Itis a dissonant, close-to-the bone explosion of everything and nothing
at the same time, like watching a film whose sound does not
match the images. In his debut novel, Clint Burnham evokes
William Gaddis, David Foster Wallace, and Irvine Welsh, a trippy period piece that takes no prisoners.
Shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction
Prize
LAVA IN MY BONES
SMOKE SHOW
Barry Webster
Clint Burnham
PUBLISHER: Arsenal Pulp
LANGUAGE: English
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 216
RIGHTS: Europe
PUBLISHER: Arsenal Pulp
LANGUAGE: English
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 216
RIGHTS: Europe
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////QUEBEC AND CANADA
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////QUEBEC AND CANADA
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////QUEBEC AND CANADA
38
P AT R I C E L E S S A R D
Patrice Lessard was born in Louiseville, Quebec in 1971. Le sermon aux poissons, his first
novel, was one of the finalists at the Ringuet Prize in 2012. He currently lives between France,
Portugal and Italy. He’s now working on his next book, set in Italy.
NINA
LE SERMON AUX POISSONS
Nina
A few years ago, Antoine decided to move from Quebec
to Portugal. He has now been missing for one year. His brother, Vincent, decides to go to Lisbon with his girlfriend Nina,
who speaks Portuguese, to find him. Nina knows the city very
well but the search of Antoine soon proves to be more difficult than predicted. There are almost no leads. One day,
they accidentally run into Gill, a private detective, who seems
confident in his ability to help them. The detective, who’s far
from rolling in money, had previously been hired by a gang of
small local thugs to recover a gun that had been lost during a
robbery. The routes of the three seem to be all leading in the
same direction and Vincent and Nina will soon be dragged
by Gill in a complicated maze of intrigues, strange encounters
and misleading tracks.
Antoine is a quebecois who decides to go on holiday in
Lisbon. There, he loses his mobile phone during a night spent
drinking in the bars of a maze-like Lisbon. The book chronicles
two days in the life of Antoine: the loss of the phone and the
investigation run by the protagonist to find it.
Divided in two parts, one told by an external narrator and
another in first person, Nina follow the narrative tradition of
Nabokov’s The real life of Sebastian Knight. Through a carefully planned structure, where conflicting clues are suggested
along the story, the book keeps the reader in a constant state
of uncertainty, where the line between truth and lie is completely blurred and, maybe, that is precisely what makes the
story credible.
“One of the big surprises of this literary season. Patrice
Lessard alternates daytime and nighttime scenes with rare
virtuosity to blur the line between the present and the past.”
Martine Desjardins, L’Actualité
Nina
LE SERMON AUX POISONS
Le sermon aux poisons
PUBLISHER: Héliotrope
LANGUAGE: French
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 397
RIGHTS: World
PUBLISHER: Héliotrope
LANGUAGE: French
YEAR: 2011
PAGES: 272
RIGHTS: World
NINA
P a tr i ce L e ss a rd
P a tr i ce L e s s a rd
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////QUEBEC AND CANADA
39
GABRIEL ANCTIL
N I C O L AS C H A L I F O U R
Nicolas Chalifour (Quebec
City, 1970) has lived in Toronto,
Montreal and its suburbs. His second novel, Variétés Delphi,
was published in 2012 by Héliotrope.
Gabriel Anctil (Montreal, 1979)
is a guy who, one day, decided to
quit his job and move to Bas-duFleuve, in Quebec. Sur la 132 is his first novel.
VU D’ICI TOUT EST PETIT
SUR LA 132
Variétés Delphi
On the road 132
A little creature (a sort of gnome) lurking in the shadows of
a manor observes the lives of people inside: the kitchen staff,
the butler, the waiters, the maids, the director and the clients.
Each day, this very determined creature goes into the building
to rummage through the rooms and cellars, discovering a new
world.
Theo works in advertising. One day the world he is so used
to, starts to feel too tight. He leaves everything and moves to
a small cottage in Trois-Pistoles, 500 km from Montreal. A novel
of initiation but at the same time a novel of atmosphere and
characters, Sur la 132 describes the universe where Theo tries
to re-invent himself, the great spaces of Quebec and its wild
nature, populated by unique characters that help keep up the
incredible rhythm of this road trip. This book is a story about different generations of people and social realities in a fantastic
region that is often left unexplored by both tourists and locals.
He examines the world of the manor in great detail, seeing
the ridiculousness of rich people and their perversity.
Through the fluid and wriggling rhythm of the narrative, told
from the perspective of a small creature who transforms into
an adventurous knight after dark (to defend the honour of his
favourite waitress), Chalifour shows us a surprising angle on the
microcosm of the manor.
WINNER OF THE QUEBEC BOOKSELLERS’
PRIZE 2010
“A mixture between Jack Kerouac’s On the road for the story
and Michel Tremblay for the language (the use of slang), On
the road 132 is however a unique and easy read. [...]
On the road 132, like its author, inspires curiosity for the taste of
adventure and is a nice tribute, with its very direct descriptions
of reality, to the region of Quebec.”
Gabrielle Brassard-Lecours, Le Plateau-Culture
Vu d’ici tout est petit was included in l’Actualité
magazine’s list of
‘35 new voices shaking Quebec literature’.
VU D’ICI TOUT EST PETIT
SUR LA 132
One the road 132
Nicolas Chalifour
Gabriel Anctil
PUBLISHER: Héliotrope
LANGUAGE: French
YEAR: 2009
PAGES: 216
RIGHTS: World
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
PUBLISHER: Héliotrope
LANGUAGE: French
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 520
RIGHTS: World
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////QUEBEC AND CANADA
40
N E L LY A R C A N
Nelly Arcan (Lac Mégantic, 1973-Montreal, 2009). Her first novel Putain (Éditions Du Seuil,
2003), drawing on her experience working in the sex trade in Montreal, caused a sensation and
enjoyed immediate critical and media success. It was a finalist for both the Prix Médicis and
the Prix Femina, two of France’s most prestigious literary awards. The two novels that followed,
Folle (Seuil, 2004), and À ciel ouvert (Seuil, 2007), established her as a literary star in Quebec
and France. She is also the author of an illustrated book on the beauty myth for young girls,
L’enfant dans le miroir (Marchand de Feuilles, 2007). Paradis, clef en main (Coups de Tête,
2009) was her fourth novel and was completed just days before she committed suicide in 2009
at the age of thirty-six.
“Dark, beautiful, poignant and clever, Arcan’s Exit
is a powerful read.”
PARADIS, CLEF EM MAIN
Exit
Lisa Foad, The Globe and Mail
Somewhere in Montreal, in the not too distant future, an
obscure company called ‘Paradis, clef en main’ offers custom-designed suicides for its clients with one condition: their desire to die must be pure and absolute and this has to be tested
though a series of inexplicable interviews. A child born of artificial insemination, now in her early 30s, Antoinette Beauchamp
has been paralyzed following a botched suicide attempt performed by the company. Confined to a hospital bed, she is
cared for by her fashionista mom who visits every day bringing
jugs of vodka and orange juice so her daughter can sink into
oblivion at will. Meanwhile, she tells her story for posterity, every
gesture followed by a surveillance camera her mother has set
up in the hospital room.
“A powerful argument for suicide as a human
right, Exit is also strangely life-affirming.”
Marianne Ackerman, Rover
While the mother loves her daughter resolutely, Antoinette
loathes the woman who forced her into being and dreams
of crushing her. Suicide is something of a family tradition. The
narrator’s grandfather took his life in a conventional way for a
psychologically coherent cause: grief. Her uncle Léon did it for
more complex, possibly temperamental reasons, a sense that
life was a prison sentence, and enlisted the services of ‘Paradis,
clef en main’. Sensing a kindred spirit in the child Antoinette, he
left her enough money to take the same road out should her
desire for escape someday overcome the will to carry on.
PARADIS, CLEF EM MAIN
This is where the novel finds its energy, as the helpless Antoinette is forced to cope with quest-like tribulations in her pursuit
of death, taking the reader into the Kafkaesque world of the
company and its bewildering cast of characters. Exit is at once
a profound examination of what it is that drives someone to
want to end their life, as well as how that urge can be turned
on its head against all odds. Written with her signature brio and
acerbic wit, Nelly Arcan’s last novel is a hymn to life.
Exit
Nelly Arcan
PUBLISHER: Coups de Tête
LANGUAGE: French
YEAR: 2009
PAGES: 224
RIGHTS: World
SOLD TO: English for Canada (Anvil Press)
Full English text available (translated by David Scott Hamilton)
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////QUEBEC AND CANADA
41
DOMINIC C. IANNUZZI
Dominic C. Iannuzzi is a Montreal writer and an unabashed news and history junkie. Born and
raised in Montreal’s Italian north-end, he brings a unique perspective to the political and language
debate that has raged in Quebec since the 1960s. D.C. Iannuzzi earned an MBA and a Bachelor of
Engineering degree at Concordia University and, when he’s not contemplating the darkness that
lurks in men’s souls, he earns his living as an Investment Advisor. City of Sinners is his first novel, and
was officially launched at the Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival in May 2008.
CITY OF SINNERS
PENANCE IS FOR THE WEAK
In this well-crafted suspense novel D.C. Iannuzzi takes
readers on a wild ride, as authorities attempt to thwart a
bomb threat instigated by an anonymous terrorist group
dead-set against the Quebec government’s repressive anti-English language laws.
In this sequel to City of Sinners, D.C. Iannuzzi confirms his
shameless devotion to the film noir genre, weaving a tale of corrosive greed, blind ambition and ruthless retribution. Julie Vadnais, an attractive and determined young reporter, confronts the
murky realms of municipal politics and organized crime in her
crusade to uncover the truth. Montreal Police Detective Johnny
Emory once again leads the police investigation, hurtling down
a collision course with the illicit world he grew up in.
The terrorists send a letter to detective Johnny Emory.
The letter warns Emory that they intend to do violence in
the name of the all minorities living in Quebec ostensibly to
motivate the French ruling class to abandon laws that make
discrimination against minorities part of the legitimate legal
structure of Quebec. Naturally this precipitates an investigation which is politically charged and hazardous to negotiate.
Iannuzzi turns Quebec separation debate on its head in
this fascinating tale, where extremist political rhetoric has
been allowed to fester and the line between good and evil
has been blurred. Iannuzzi’s characters are interesting, personable and well drawn, his style is tight, lean and very clean.
Shortlisted for the F. G. Bressani Literary Prize
(Vancouver 2012)
An incredibly current political thriller novel,
dealing with controversial issues such as separatism, struggle for independence and the claims
of ethnic minorities.
CITY OF SINNERS
PENANCE IS FOR THE WEAK
PUBLISHER: Longbridge Books
LANGUAGE: English
YEAR: 2008
PAGES: 212
RIGHTS: World
PUBLISHER: Longbridge Books
LANGUAGE: English
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 244
RIGHTS: World
Dominic C. Iannuzzi
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
D o m i n i c C . I an n u z z i
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////QUEBEC AND CANADA
BARRY WEBSTER
42
CLINT BURNHAM
Barry Webster’s first book, The
Sound of All Flesh (Porcupine’s
Quill), won the ReLit Award for best
short-story collection in 2005. He has been a finalist for the National Magazine Award, the CBCQuebec Prize, and the Hugh
MacLennan Award. Originally from Toronto, he currently lives
in East Montreal.
LAVA IN MY BONES
Clint Burnham is a Vancouver
writer and critic. He teaches in the
English department at Simon Fraser
University and is the author of many books, including the novel
Smoke Show (Arsenal Pulp), the poetry collections The Benjamin Sonnets (Bookthug) and Rental Van (Anvil), and the literary theory book The Jamesonian Unconscious (Duke University
Press).
SMOKE SHOW
A frustrated Canadian geologist studying global warming
becomes obsessed with eating rocks after embarking on his first
same-sex relationship in Europe. Back home, his young sister is a
high-school girl who suddenly starts to ooze honey through her
pores, an affliction that attracts hordes of bees as well as her
male classmates but ultimately turns her into a social pariah.
Meanwhile, their obsessive Pentecostal mother repeatedly calls
on the Holy Spirit to rid her family of demons. The siblings are
reunited on a ship bound for Europe where they hope to start
a new life, but are unaware that their disguised mother is also
on board and plotting to win back their souls, with the help of
the Virgin Mary.
Told in a lush baroque prose, this intense, extravagant magic-realist novel combines elements of fairy tales, horror movies,
and romances to create a comic, hallucinatory celebration of
excess and sensuality.
Lambda Literary Award and Ferro-Grumley
Award for LGBT Fiction Finalist
A doll is taped to the hood of a wedding car. A list of favourite cocktails from the eighties. Hide the drugs from your
parents and your kids. Kevin Costner in Waterworld: hot or not?
Smoke Show is a novel that will astound readers with its audacious, stripped-down narrative set in the mid-nineties about
assorted f**k-ups, diehards, and lost souls, seen through a hazy
filter of bus fumes and cigarette smoke. Told in “real time,”
Smoke Show is raw, candid, amorphous; told through jargon
and petty dialogue commonly heard in the street or on public
transit, Smoke Show is a novel told in conversation. Itis a dissonant, close-to-the bone explosion of everything and nothing
at the same time, like watching a film whose sound does not
match the images. In his debut novel, Clint Burnham evokes
William Gaddis, David Foster Wallace, and Irvine Welsh, a trippy period piece that takes no prisoners.
Shortlisted for the Ethel Wilson Fiction
Prize
LAVA IN MY BONES
SMOKE SHOW
Barry Webster
Clint Burnham
PUBLISHER: Arsenal Pulp
LANGUAGE: English
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 216
RIGHTS: Europe
PUBLISHER: Arsenal Pulp
LANGUAGE: English
YEAR: 2012
PAGES: 216
RIGHTS: Europe
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////QUEBEC AND CANADA
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y
ARGOSY
catalogUE 2013
////////////QUEBEC AND CANADA
A R G O S Y
F O R E I G N
R I G H T S
A G E N C Y