Eight years and two novels later, my dream of having a French version of Cycling to Asylum is finally coming true!

When I first began this adventure of becoming an author, I had no idea how things worked. I understood that Cycling to Asylum, a story of flight and refugee protection (or the lack thereof), of borders and of smashing them, of activism and international solidarity, of learning a new language and different ways of being, of two cities — Montréal and New York — and the people who live and struggle there, would be of strong interest to francophone Québecers, but I did not know how to bring that story to life in a language that I could only speak and write very imperfectly.

As the years passed, I saw that the traditional way of getting a book translated and published in another language did not seem to be in the cards, and after a while, I began to wonder if “la version française” of this story would ever see the light of day.

It was the translator herself who finally made it happen. After learning about the novel through a panel I participated in during Congrès Boréal, Émilie Laramée approached me about a translation. Passionate, talented, and with a lot of savoir faire, it was she who identified the perfect publisher and convinced them to go ahead with the project. VLB Imaginaire, a new collection of the well-established VLB éditeur, is a first-rate publisher of hopeful, edgy, Québec speculative fiction. They have already published some outstanding novels in French; Les lignes invisibles joins the ranks as their first translation. From what I’ve seen, VLB Imaginaire has a bright future ahead of it. I am so lucky to be part of their family of authors!