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This article is the first-ever study on the Quebec novel L'âne de Carpizan ou L'évêque volant and its author, Raymond Goulet (1931- 1991), a performance artist, dancer, and choreographer originally from Rivière-du-Loup. The novel was self-published by Goulet in 1957 and had fallen into obscurity until recently. In contrast with other literary works of its time, L'âne de Carpizan stands out as a brazen satirical piece that imagines homosexuality and transidentity positively and is, as far as we know, the first Canadian literary work in which the protagonist undergoes gender affirming surgery. In their study, the authors examine Goulet's life and the circumstances surrounding the publication of his first and only novel, as well as the novel's editorial history. In the first part of the article, following a synopsis of L'âne de Carpizan, they present the results of their investigation into the novel's publication, distribution, and reception. In the second part, they recount the events of Raymond Goulet's life and all-too-brief writing career. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 1923, Édouard Garand founded a publishing house in Montreal whose main purpose was to promote Canadian literature among the Francophone working classes across Canada. Gérard Malchelosse, member of the editorial committee, bore witness to the nationalist leanings of the press, explaining at the time that it was “a Canadian publishing house of Canadian novels, written for Canadians by Canadians and printed in Canada by Canadians. It’s a national enterprise intended to provide an injection of patriotism while helping our authors by distributing their works.” Even though these affirmations might lead one to believe that publishing house of Édouard Garand is exclusively aimed at a local audience, through studying the distribution of the collection “Le Roman canadien” we can learn more about the enterprise’s particularly far-reaching commercial distribution networks: the major cities of French and British colonies, as well as South and North America, from New York as far as to Buenos Aires. This article proposes the study of these networks in terms of their colonial, political, and commercial positionings, while also placing in context this distribution system with the export of Canadian books during the period. The analysis of the documents held in the Fonds Édouard-Garand (Université de Montréal) reveals the existence of two distinct networks. From 1926 onwards, the publishing house announces that its Canadian novels were sold in depots located in France, Great Britain, but also, more surprisingly, in Saigon, Algiers, and Cape Town. The publisher appears thus to have been making use of the commercial networks of French and British colonial depositories in order to participate in the overseas distribution, via different Francophone bookstores, of Canadian literature. Secondly, after 1944, while France was under Occupation, Montreal became the global centre of Francophone publishing, a new state of affairs that Garand took advantage of by using a variety of Canadian diplomatic and political channels in order to open new distribution networks in Latin America. His “Roman canadien” was promoted to middlemen in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, and Peru, via commercial representatives and attachés from Canada’s Department of External Affairs. However, Garand did not intend to participate in the network of North-South cultural and intellectual exchanges, studied notably by Michel Lacroix and Michel Nareau. The system set in place by the Montreal publisher was less concerned with the economy of knowledge and more concerned with turning a profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]