Indigo inks clothing deal with Adidas

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This article was published 24/12/2022 (1382 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Canadian writers, publishers and book lovers who have been watching nervously as the country’s largest bookseller has transitioned away from books and towards home decor and lifestyle accessories got more ominous news this fall when Indigo announced a deal with Adidas.

Described as the first step toward a larger partnership between the two companies, the deal will bring exclusive Adidas offerings to selected Indigo stores in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

It makes Indigo the only third-party retailer in Canada to carry Adidas’ Lego collection of kids’ sportswear and also brings a variety of yoga and lounging clothing items to the stores.

The shift in sales focus comes at the same time as Indigo is receiving funds from a federal government program to help Canadian bookstores sell books online.

The department of Canadian Heritage last month posted a backgrounder on the first $12 million allocated through a program called the Canada Book Fund, showing Indigo will receive $3.5 million for 2022-2024. Two French-language retail chains also received about $2.5 million in total. The rest of the $12 million went to 177 small chains and independent stores, with 54 per cent of the total going to companies in Quebec.

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Canadian poet Anne Carson, whose new translation of the Greek tragedy Antigone was produced this fall in Winnipeg by Sick and Twisted Theatre and AA Battery, has been named to the International Writers program of Britain’s Royal Society of Literature.

Among the other writers named to the program, which celebrates the power of literature to break down borders, are American short fiction writer Mary Gaitskill, German children’s literature author Cornelia Funke and Tsitsi Dangaremba, a Zimbabwean author, winner of last year’s PEN Pinter Prize, who has been targeted by the country’s government.

This is the second year for the RSL’s international program.

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Venezuelan publisher Editorial Dahbar is this year’s winner of the International Freedom to Publish/Jeri Laber Award, managed by the Association of American Publishers. The annual award, established in 2002, recognizes a publisher outside the U.S. who has “demonstrated courage and fortitude in defending freedom of expression.”

The publishing company has fought to continue producing books despite Venezuela’s economic collapse, new laws targeting hate speech that are used against critics of the government, threats from organized crime, harassment of authors and various forms of governmental pressure.

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After several years of books on current events and recent history, the judges of the Baillie Gifford prize for non-fiction have selected a book on the prominent early modern poet John Donne for this year’s honour.

Super Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne (Faber & Faber) by Katherine Rundell examines the leading figure among the “metaphysical poets” of the late 16th and early 17th centuries, probably best known for No Man Is an Island. “Rundell makes an irresistible case for Donne’s work to be widely read 400 years later, for all the electric joy and love it expresses,” the judges write. “And in so doing, she gives us a myriad reasons why poetry — why the arts — matter.”

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Most recent winning books have focused on 20th-century topics, including the opioid epidemic, the Beatles, Chernobyl and the fight against AIDS. The last winning book to look back farther than the Victorian era was James S. Shapiro’s 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare.

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Striking staff at the New York offices of HarperCollins have received support from a group of literary agents who have signed a letter promising not to send new manuscripts to the publisher until the strike ends.

“We and our clients have benefited greatly from the passion and expertise of HarperCollins’ staff, and we stand with them in their demands for a living wage, a more equitable and diverse workplace, and stronger union protections,” says the letter, signed by nearly 200 agents.

The strike began Nov. 10 and the union, a local of the United Auto Workers, has been in negotiation with the company since last December.

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