Montreal Noir

Начало книги

Montreal is an island, both literally and figuratively.

It took us longer to put this anthology together than we’d hoped, but that didn’t surprise us much. Montreal is one of the oldest cities in North America and seems to be in a constant state of flux, changing its personality every few decades. Today, the city has its own language: Franglais (or Frenglish). Maybe the first word spoken in that language was noir.

Noir is Montreal.

It’s unsettling, it’s subversive, it’s palpable, but it’s never obvious. Noir is in the shadows. Montreal’s long history is dominated by cultures coming together, almost. And cultures coming apart, almost. But always continuing.

When Frenchman Jacques Cartier reached the island of Montreal in 1535, he was met by the inhabitants of the village of Hochelaga, the Saint Lawrence Iroquoians. Yet when Samuel de Champlain arrived seventy years later, the village was gone. Champlain established a fur trading post, which grew slowly, and in 1725, walls were built to fortify the French village.

Читать дальше →