Nikolski

Knopf Canada’s newest Face of Fiction is Nicolas Dickner, author of a critically lauded, award-winning literary sensation in Quebec, a bestseller when published in 2005.

Get ready for the joyride that is Nikolski.
“One cannot say it enough: this book is the discovery of the year. . . . The humour is striking; his vision stunning.”
Carole Beaulieu, L’actualité

Awards for the French-language edition:
Prix des libraires 2006
Prix littéraire des collégiens 2006
Prix Anne-Hébert 2006 (Best first book)
Prix Printemps des Lecteurs–Lavinal

Spring 1989. Three young people–Noah, Joyce and an unnamed narrator–leave their far-flung birthplaces to follow their own personal songs of migration. Each ends up in Montreal, each on a voyage of self-discovery, dealing with the mishaps of heartbreak and the twisted branches of their shared family tree.

With humour, charm and the sure touch of a born storyteller, Nicolas Dickner crafts a tale that shows the surprising links between garbage-obsessed archeologists, pirates past and present, earthquake victims, sea snakes, several very large tuna fish, an illiterate deep-sea diver, a Commodore 64, a mysterious book with no cover, and a broken compass whose needle obstinately points to the Aleutian village of Nikolski.