Fiction

McGill professor Alain Farah is one of Quebec’s most prominent authors. His award-winning novel Mille secrets mille dangers prompted an unexpected offer from celebrated filmmaker Philippe Falardeau (Monsieur Lazhar) – to work together to transform the novel into a movie.

The holidays are almost upon us and (hopefully) that means you’ll soon be able to spend some quality time with a good book or two. Here are some possibilities for you to consider – all written by McGill alums.

As an undergraduate, Kai Thomas, BA’16, examined old newspaper ads in the McGill Library about runaway slaves. That research helped inform In the Upper Country, his first novel, which won one of Canada’s top literary prizes last year.

Anuja Varghese, BA’05, won two major Canadian literary awards in 2023, but she struggled in her first attempts to put her book Chrysalis together. “I was trying to write what I thought belonged in a literary short story collection.” Things got easier once she focused on the “the weird stuff, the ghost stories.”

As comic book superheroes dominate the pop culture landscape, Ethan Sacks, BA’94, and Mariko Tamaki, BA’98, are making their mark with comics about Hawkeye and Supergirl.

Twenty years ago, the powers that be at Archie Comics warned Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, MA’97, to stay far away from their characters. Now he is one of the key architects of Archie’s resurgence.

Actress Mackenzie Davis, BA’10, is seemingly everywhere at the moment – at the Emmy Awards, where her Black Mirror episode was triumphant, in the critically acclaimed TV series Halt and Catch Fire and, soon, in one of the most anticipated films of 2017 – Blade Runner 2049