Nikolski - Hardcover

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.

Nicolas Dickner won two literary awards for his first published work, the short story collection L’encyclopédie du petit cercle. Born in Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec, he travelled extensively in Europe and Latin America before settling in Montreal.