Alfred A. Knopf Canada - familiarly known as Knopf Canada - is one of the premier publishers in the country for fiction and non-fiction, publishing some of the most compelling books of our time. Its commitment to quality writing, good storytelling, big ideas and books that help move our society forward - as well as its core belief that good books deserve a wide readership and commercial success - has never wavered. The writer and the reader together are at the heart of Knopf Canada's success.
The Beginnings:
In 1991, Alfred A. Knopf - the New York house founded in 1915 by Alfred Knopf and his wife, Blanche - approached Louise Dennys to create Knopf in Canada as an editorially independent Canadian house. Louise, a passionate supporter of Canadian writing and the creator of The International Fiction List at the renowned Toronto publishing house Lester & Orpen Dennys, was already the publisher of such major Canadian books as The Illustrated History of Canada, Irving Abella's None Is Too Many and Joy Kogawa's Obasan, as well as such writers as Graham Greene, Michael Ondaatje, P. D. James, Jeanette Winterson, Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Alberto Manguel, Rudy Wiebe, Italo Calvino, Josef Skvorecky, and Martin Amis, who moved with her to the new house.
For the first eighteen months, Louise and an Editorial Assistant ran Knopf Canada from her Spadina Gardens apartment. Knopf Canada's first small list included From Ink Lake, a collection of Canadian stories selected by Michael Ondaatje; Toni Morrison's novel Jazz; Vaclav Havel's Summer Meditations; and Cronenberg on Cronenberg, interviews with the Canadian filmmaker. The list telegraphed the new house's interest in supporting the most engaging domestic and foreign writing. It established the imprint's commitment to "Bringing the best of the world to Canada and the best of Canada to the world."
Today:
Today, Knopf Canada is the chosen home of many of Canada and the world's best writers. Its list contains many national and international bestsellers, and every year its dedicated team of excellent editors is proud to acclaim award-winning titles such as the Giller Prize-winning Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler; the beloved Booker Prize-winning Life of Pi by Yann Martel and The English Patient (paperback edition) by Michael Ondaatje; numerous Governor General's Literary Award winners, including Barney's Version (1998), The Ingenuity Gap by Thomas Homer-Dixon and Naomi Klein's No Logo (2001), A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews (2004) - which went on to win CBC Canada Reads (2006) - The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant (2005), and Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner, translated by Lazer Lederhendler (2008), which also won CBC Canada Reads (2010). Commonwealth Writers' Prize winners include Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald; Atonement by Ian McEwan; Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones; and Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri.
The books of writers from many countries sit on the list side by side with those of our wonderful Canadian writers in both hardcover and/or Vintage Canada paperback - many of them #1 bestsellers, many of them literary treasures - from Nobel winners V. S. Naipaul and Orhan Pamuk to Booker winners Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood (paperback); John Irving and Salman Rushdie to Ronald Wright and Stevie Cameron; from Dionne Brand and Wayne Johnston to David Mitchell and Tom McCarthy; from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun and Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Nomad to the phenomenally successful The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway; from the Booker finalist The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt and the provocative, bestselling works of Naomi Klein - No Logo and The Shock Doctrine - and Dr. Gabor Maté, including his #1 national bestseller In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts; from Karen Armstrong and Oliver Sacks to Henning Mankell and John English's award-winning biography of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Knopf Canada is also the proud publisher of Alexander McCall Smith's beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie series, the 44 Scotland Street series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series and the Corduroy Mansions series.
Knopf Canada is a champion of up-and-coming writers. In 2011, Knopf Canada is celebrating the 15th anniversary of "The New Face of Fiction is Here" campaign, launched to help raise the profile of fledgling Canadian writers. In the debut year of the New Face of Fiction programme, Ann-Marie MacDonald's novel Fall On Your Knees won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book and the CBA Libris Award, and went on to become an Oprah's Book Club Pick. Also published under the NFOF banner are such subsequently successful authors as Ami McKay, Gail Anderson-Dargatz, Yann Martel, Steven Heighton, Mary Lawson, Lori Lansens, Beth Powning, Jessica Grant, and Eden Robinson.
In the years ahead, Knopf Canada pledges to continue publishing works marked by good writing, and original, intelligent perspectives fostering compelling books with vital roles to play in our everyday lives and in shaping our cultural and social vision.
The Beginnings:
In 1991, Alfred A. Knopf - the New York house founded in 1915 by Alfred Knopf and his wife, Blanche - approached Louise Dennys to create Knopf in Canada as an editorially independent Canadian house. Louise, a passionate supporter of Canadian writing and the creator of The International Fiction List at the renowned Toronto publishing house Lester & Orpen Dennys, was already the publisher of such major Canadian books as The Illustrated History of Canada, Irving Abella's None Is Too Many and Joy Kogawa's Obasan, as well as such writers as Graham Greene, Michael Ondaatje, P. D. James, Jeanette Winterson, Ian McEwan, Kazuo Ishiguro, Alberto Manguel, Rudy Wiebe, Italo Calvino, Josef Skvorecky, and Martin Amis, who moved with her to the new house.
For the first eighteen months, Louise and an Editorial Assistant ran Knopf Canada from her Spadina Gardens apartment. Knopf Canada's first small list included From Ink Lake, a collection of Canadian stories selected by Michael Ondaatje; Toni Morrison's novel Jazz; Vaclav Havel's Summer Meditations; and Cronenberg on Cronenberg, interviews with the Canadian filmmaker. The list telegraphed the new house's interest in supporting the most engaging domestic and foreign writing. It established the imprint's commitment to "Bringing the best of the world to Canada and the best of Canada to the world."
Today:
Today, Knopf Canada is the chosen home of many of Canada and the world's best writers. Its list contains many national and international bestsellers, and every year its dedicated team of excellent editors is proud to acclaim award-winning titles such as the Giller Prize-winning Barney's Version by Mordecai Richler; the beloved Booker Prize-winning Life of Pi by Yann Martel and The English Patient (paperback edition) by Michael Ondaatje; numerous Governor General's Literary Award winners, including Barney's Version (1998), The Ingenuity Gap by Thomas Homer-Dixon and Naomi Klein's No Logo (2001), A Complicated Kindness by Miriam Toews (2004) - which went on to win CBC Canada Reads (2006) - The Golden Spruce by John Vaillant (2005), and Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner, translated by Lazer Lederhendler (2008), which also won CBC Canada Reads (2010). Commonwealth Writers' Prize winners include Fall On Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald; Atonement by Ian McEwan; Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones; and Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri.
The books of writers from many countries sit on the list side by side with those of our wonderful Canadian writers in both hardcover and/or Vintage Canada paperback - many of them #1 bestsellers, many of them literary treasures - from Nobel winners V. S. Naipaul and Orhan Pamuk to Booker winners Michael Ondaatje and Margaret Atwood (paperback); John Irving and Salman Rushdie to Ronald Wright and Stevie Cameron; from Dionne Brand and Wayne Johnston to David Mitchell and Tom McCarthy; from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's Half of a Yellow Sun and Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Nomad to the phenomenally successful The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway; from the Booker finalist The Children's Book by A. S. Byatt and the provocative, bestselling works of Naomi Klein - No Logo and The Shock Doctrine - and Dr. Gabor Maté, including his #1 national bestseller In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts; from Karen Armstrong and Oliver Sacks to Henning Mankell and John English's award-winning biography of Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Knopf Canada is also the proud publisher of Alexander McCall Smith's beloved No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series, the Isabel Dalhousie series, the 44 Scotland Street series, the Portuguese Irregular Verbs series and the Corduroy Mansions series.
Knopf Canada is a champion of up-and-coming writers. In 2011, Knopf Canada is celebrating the 15th anniversary of "The New Face of Fiction is Here" campaign, launched to help raise the profile of fledgling Canadian writers. In the debut year of the New Face of Fiction programme, Ann-Marie MacDonald's novel Fall On Your Knees won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book and the CBA Libris Award, and went on to become an Oprah's Book Club Pick. Also published under the NFOF banner are such subsequently successful authors as Ami McKay, Gail Anderson-Dargatz, Yann Martel, Steven Heighton, Mary Lawson, Lori Lansens, Beth Powning, Jessica Grant, and Eden Robinson.
In the years ahead, Knopf Canada pledges to continue publishing works marked by good writing, and original, intelligent perspectives fostering compelling books with vital roles to play in our everyday lives and in shaping our cultural and social vision.
