Kanata Classics celebrates Canadian books
Stephanie Sinclair began reading when she was two years old — and she's never stopped.
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That suits her present day job as publisher of Toronto's venerable home for Canadian literature, McClelland and Stewart. And it's proved vital to the launching of a beautifully designed new series, Kanata Classics, that will honour the richness and diversity of Canadian literature over the decades. And if you want to understand why this groundbreaking event is happening on her watch, her Toronto childhood provides answers.
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'I just devoured books,' she remembers. 'I loved them as a vehicle for being transported into someone else's world, either real or imaginary.' But Stephanie, an Indigenous child, also came to understand the importance of empathy — of being 'exposed to different ways of being with appreciation and respect. That is a part of what I've carried with me through my entire time.'
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It's a philosophy that accompanied her to McClelland and Stewart two years ago after a successful career as a leading literary agent — and to the birth of Kanata Classics. The inaugural list of six titles, released this month, sees legendary Maritimer Alistair MacLeod's famed short story collection, Island, sharing the shelves with Maria Campbell's Halfbreed.
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'It was something that I was really really keen in starting up,' Sinclair says. The company's long-lived New Canadian Library series had reflected its commitment to honouring the country's literary heritage but 'part of my thinking in starting up Kanata was that we had made a mistake in not continuing with NCL and allowing it to adapt as the world has.'
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The series is being launched to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the company has described the initial six titles — three Indigenous-authored and three non-Indigenous — as an act of reconciliation in itself.
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Sinclair embraces Canada's past literary legacy, which will be honoured in the new series, but has concluded that Canada 'hasn't been doing enough in its wider history to honour books published by Indigenous authors and other authors who have been neglected.'
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It was during her years as a literary agent that she became fully aware of the diversity and richness of Canadian writing. 'I don't think our wider classical landscape has honoured how many different types of people, how many different types of stories exist here. For me, it was time to define what that conversation looks like.'
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McClelland and Stewart today exists under the umbrella of Penguin Random House Canada. Sinclair began working with company colleagues and a special advisory board to develop the idea of a new series — 'and we hit the ground running.'
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