MontréaLisons: Nicolas Michon's top reads
Nicolas Michon is an actor, screenwriter, author and director. He recommends four books that encourage dialogue on inclusion and the fight against racism and discrimination.
His top-four reads
Bâtons à message / Tshissinuatshitakana, by Joséphine Bacon
Éditions Mémoire d’encrier, 2009
I met Josephine Bacon last year and, to avoid looking like a dummy in front of her, I read her first collection. I read it in French since the edition is bilingual, but I liked being able to see the original text in Innu, in its oral tradition. Speaking of nature, the book touches on absolutely everything: family, tradition, uprooting, identity, torment and dreams. This collection should be studied in class. The documentary about her, “Call Me Human”, directed by Kim O’Bomsawin, is also a must-see.
Mãn, by Kim Thúy
Random House Canada, 2014
This book inspires me. The heroine, Mãn, has a series of three mothers, a bit like how the author and I have more than one country in us. Through cooking, Mãn learns about herself and evolves. I also chose this work because the author is of Vietnamese origin. There are not a thousand artists of Asian origin in Quebec, or maybe there are a thousand, but we know very few and that’s too bad.
Hare Krishna, Hare Rama and Mayapur (three-volume series), by François Gilbert
Leméac jeunesse, 2016, 2018 and 2020
These three novels are about spirituality, but mostly about the perception of difference, which is a close parallel to racism. As a Quebecer, an Asian and an adopted person, I know how I am sometimes looked at as an immigrant, even though I don’t even speak Korean; as if I didn’t have the right to be anything other than this perception. This is what 16-year-old Mikael experiences in this trilogy. His family rejects everything he has learned at Krishna Temple. Physically and psychologically confined in the first novel, he flees further and further from “home” in order to live his life to the fullest in the other two volumes. I had never read a work that speaks of self-discovery in such a simple, frank and daring way. François Gilbert deals with the individual oppressed by the majority, the “norm”, the straight and narrow, the preconceived idea and the rejection of change. On top of that, the author is one of my closest friends.
White Fragility, by Robin DiAngelo
Beacon Press, 2018
When you’re not a white person, it’s not always easy to talk to your white social circle or white family about the difficulty of living in a city or country with that majority. Robin DiAngelo, a professor of multicultural education, sociologist, and anti-racist activist, has done much to forge the concept of “whiteness.” She focuses on the American situation, but the situations described apply generally in the Western world. You don’t have to be a white person to read or listen to this work.
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