Kanata Classics celebrates Canadian books

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Stephanie Sinclair began reading when she was two years old — and she’s never stopped.

That suits her present day job as publisher of Toronto’s venerable home for Canadian literature, McClelland and Stewart. And it’s proved vital to the launching of a beautifully designed new series, Kanata Classics, that will honour the richness and diversity of Canadian literature over the decades. And if you want to understand why this groundbreaking event is happening on her watch, her Toronto childhood provides answers.

“I just devoured books,” she remembers. “I loved them as a vehicle for being transported into someone else’s world, either real or imaginary.” But Stephanie, an Indigenous child, also came to understand the importance of empathy — of being “exposed to different ways of being with appreciation and respect. That is a part of what I’ve carried with me through my entire time.”

It’s a philosophy that accompanied her to McClelland and Stewart two years ago after a successful career as a leading literary agent — and to the birth of Kanata Classics. The inaugural list of six titles, released this month, sees legendary Maritimer Alistair MacLeod’s famed short story collection, Island, sharing the shelves with Maria Campbell’s Halfbreed.

“It was something that I was really really keen in starting up,” Sinclair says. The company’s long-lived New Canadian Library series had reflected its commitment to honouring the country’s literary heritage but “part of my thinking in starting up Kanata was that we had made a mistake in not continuing with NCL and allowing it to adapt as the world has.”

The series is being launched to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and the company has described the initial six titles — three Indigenous-authored and three non-Indigenous — as an act of reconciliation in itself.

Sinclair embraces Canada’s past literary legacy, which will be honoured in the new series, but has concluded that Canada “hasn’t been doing enough in its wider history to honour books published by Indigenous authors and other authors who have been neglected.”

It was during her years as a literary agent that she became fully aware of the diversity and richness of Canadian writing. “I don’t think our wider classical landscape has honoured how many different types of people, how many different types of stories exist here. For me, it was time to define what that conversation looks like.”

McClelland and Stewart today exists under the umbrella of Penguin Random House Canada. Sinclair began working with company colleagues and a special advisory board to develop the idea of a new series — “and we hit the ground running.”

What excites her most about her debut list of new titles is that they’re all so different. In contrast to Alistair MacLeod’s celebration of Maritime culture in Island, the series also offers Bear, Marian Engel’s award-winning 1976 fable about a lonely librarian’s sexual relationship with a bear, and Vietnamese- Canadian author Kim Thuy’s Ru, a touching examination of the immigrant experience.

Along with Maria Campbell’s Halfbreed, the Indigenous representation also includes Medicine Walk, Richard Wagamese’s evocative account of a 16-year-old boy’s search for a burial place in the B.C. wilderness, and Jordan Abel’s Nishga, a boldly experimental meditation on Indigenous life, with particular reference to the residential school tragedy.

“All these books explore different ways of being here and living on the land,” Sinclair says. “And for me that is a starting point — to have titles that create a very wide canvas of what it means to be Canadian.”

A lot of care has gone into the production of the books — from the choice of typeface and special introductions to the stunning cover art commissioned from a variety of illustrators.

“I’m so grateful to Kelly Hill who is our designer and absolutely brilliant,” Sinclair says. “She brought such care to all our choices to make sure that each piece of art that would go with the text was entirely appropriate. She read every book and then found artists who could achieve a conversation with the text.”

Kanata Library list: Books published this month

• Nishga by Jordan Abel
• Halfbreed by Maria Campbell
• Bear by Marian Engel
• Island by Alistair MacLeod
• Medicine Walk by Richard Wagamese
• Ru by Kim Thuy

Scheduled for 2026

• This Wound Is A World by Billy-Ray Belcourt
• Little Badger And The Fire Spirit by Maria Campbell
• The Origin Of Waves by Austin Clarke
• American War by Omar El Akkad
• The Tin Flute by Gabrielle Roy
• Starlight by Richard Wagamese