The Salon du livre de Toronto is an annual

book fair A book is a medium for recording information in the form of writing or images, typically composed of many pages (made of papyrus, parchment, vellum, or paper) bound together and protected by a cover. The technical term for this physical arr ...

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

, held to celebrate and publicize

French language French ( or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European family. It descended from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire, as did all Romance languages. French evolved from Gallo-Romance, the Latin spoken in Gaul, and more specifically in Nor ...

literature."'Les livres' celebrated in Toronto". ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'', October 8, 1993. Launched in 1993 as the first French language book fair in Canada outside

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

, the event features a program of author readings, panel discussions and publisher exhibitions over the course of several days in the fall of each year."Book fair heavy on Franco-Ontarian authors". ''

'', October 2, 2003. It concentrates primarily on Franco-Ontarian authors, although publishers and writers from Quebec and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

also participate. Due to the Franco-Ontarian community's relatively limited access to French language media and bookstores, it serves as an essential venue for promotion and networking between the publishing industry and French language school boards, post-secondary institutions, libraries and other community organizations in the province. The event was founded by writer and educator

Christine Dumitriu Van Saanen Christine Dumitriu Van Saanen (1932 – April 2008) was a Romanian-born Canadian writer, educator, engineer and geologist. Biography The daughter of a Dutch diplomat in Romania, she was born in Bucharest and was educated there and at the Oil & ...

, who served as its director general until 2006.

Awards

Since its inception, the event has presented an annual award to a work judged as the year's best work of French literature by a writer from Ontario. Initially named the Grand Prix du Salon du livre de Toronto, it was renamed the Prix Christine-Dumitriu-Van-Saanen in 1999 to honour the event's founder. The award was renamed the Prix Alain-Thomas in 2020, following the death of influential Franco-Ontarian academic Alain Thomas."Du Niagara en Haïti via la planète Tanguy, chez les finalistes du prix Alain-Thomas"
''

L'Express ''L'Express'' () is a French weekly news magazine headquartered in Paris. The weekly stands at the political centre in the French media landscape, and has a lifestyle supplement, ''L'Express Styles'', and a job supplement, ''Réussir''. History ...

'', February 20, 2021. In 2017, the Salon du livre introduced the Prix Québec-Ontario, an award administered jointly with the Salon du livre de Rimouski in Quebec and presented to two writers, one from each province, who have published their first book. The winners in 2017 were Mishka Lavigne (Ontario) for ''Cinéma'', and Christophe Bernard (Quebec) for ''La bête creuse''.François Bergeron
"Claude Guilmain, Mishka Lavigne et Christophe Bernard primés"
''

'', November 30, 2017. The award has not, however, been presented again in the years since 2017.

Grand Prix du Salon du livre de Toronto (1993-1998)

Prix Christine-Dumitriu-Van-Saanen (1999-2019)

Prix Alain-Thomas (2021-)

References

External links

*{{official, https://www.salondulivredetoronto.com/ Annual events in Toronto Franco-Ontarian organizations 1993 establishments in Ontario Canadian literary awards Book fairs in Canada French-language literary awards Literary festivals in Ontario