Looking back at Hobo-Québec : a literary touchstone

Looking back at Hobo-Québec : a literary touchstone
with André Roy, Sébastien Dulude and Simon-Pier Labelle-Hogue.

Sunday November 15, 2 pm, Expozine Reading Room, 5035 Saint-Dominique. Facebook event!

Hobo-Québec. A magazine of writing and images (1972-1981) can be seen as an artistic magazine par excellence of Quebec counter-culture. Created by Claude Robitaille, quickly assisted by André Roy, the magazine published visual art, poetry and proseby the likes of Denis Vanier, Josée Yvon Yolande Villemaire, Claude Beausoleil, Straram Patrick, Victor-Lévy Beaulieu and many others: collages, texts, images, games, essays, criticisms and reflections.

Hobo-Québec was one of the most influential counter-culture magazines. Compared to the wide range of material found in other magazines such as Mainmise, Hobo-Québec stood out with its literary content, which includes many authors now considered legendary.

The discussion will feature André Roy, who took part in the editorial committee and played an important role in including many of its esteemed contributors. The poet, who recently received the Alain-Grandbois prize of the Academy of Letters of Quebec for his collection The vast loneliness of Franz Kafka, will discuss the origins and production of this important publication.

It’s a rare opportunity to discover a forgotten icon of Montreal underground 70s culture, and its lniks with other important magazines of the era.

Born in 1944, André Roy holds a doctorate in French studies. In addition to having taught and lectured in North America and Europe, he contributed as an editor not just to Hobo-Québec (1972-1974), but also to Editions du Jour (1973-1974), Éditions de l’Aurore (1974-1975), the magazine Spirale (1979-1983), Herbes Rouges (1983-1985) and Hexagone (1986-1988). He has received numerous awards including the Governor General”s Award (1985, finalist in 1979 and 1984), the Grand Prix of the Festival de la Poèsie de Trois-Rivières (1987) and, more recently, of the Academie des Lettres du Québec.

The event is a part of the fall 2015 conference and series, Contre-Culture: Existences et Persistances and Arcmtl‘s research project, Montreal Underground Origins.

Visit the event’s Facebook page !