Gabriel Ndayishimiye, Lead Publisher and Founder of LivenBooks Credit: Gabriel Ndayishimiye
Today, Gabriel Ndayishimiye, the Lead Publisher and Founder of LivenBooks, joins me to discuss his love of books as well as his deep obsession with literature.
LivenBooks is a volunteer-run, non-profit independent publishing house dedicated to elevating critical stories from the margins. By offering an inclusive platform that actively seeks out and promotes underrepresented voices, LivenBooks aims to bridge the gap between writers who find themselves consciously excluded by the mainstream publishing industry and readers who can benefit from their unique perspectives.
Gabriel is also the author of Run Elvin! (Laskin Publishing) an expansive, three-dimensional account of one man's refugee experience in all its traumas and triumphs, and a love letter from father to son on the power of will, hope and self-examination in the face of the darkest echoes of history.
Run Elvin! is a love letter to Gabriel’s son chronicling Gabriel’s flight from the Rwandan genocide as an infant and the long, complicated journey that eventually led him to London, Ontario.
Run Elvin! is the first book of the planned trilogy and targets youth aged fifteen years and over who love to read inspiring memoirs as well as students, researchers, and policy and program development professionals in refugee protection, immigrant settlement, and refugee advocacy.
Gabriel challenges readers to confront uncomfortable truths and reconsider their perception of both past and present-day Rwanda which continues to be a society in flux.
It was while trying to get Run Elvin! published that Gabriel experienced the barriers immigrant, migrant, displaced and refugee writers face from mainstream Canadian publishers and that led to the founding of LivenBooks.
Gabriel and I discuss what makes great literature as well as the criteria he uses to evaluate "a great book" of literature.
LivenBooks current selection. Credit: Gabriel Ndayishimiye
LivenBooks has accomplished several major publishing milestones. Author E. Vin Mudah’s autobiography, My Father’s Son, recounts his early life being uprooted by the Rwandan genocide and then finally coming to Canada on a scholarship to study economics and international relations at the University of Toronto and completing a four-year degree in just three years with distinction.
Mudah then went on to complete a 2-year economics program at McGill in just one year before becoming a mail carrier and serving in the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve.
Then, there’s Bernie Gilmore, who surprisingly is an older white gentleman and author of Heart of Africa which details his experiences collaborating with the Kinsmen African Medical Relief during the Ethiopian famine in the late 1980s. Gilmore then went on to become their Field Director spending 12 years leading integrated rural development projects in Africa.
And, of course, Radha Menon’s play Blackberry, that captures life as Black, Indigenous, Muslim and queer youth living in Hamilton, Ontario. Radha had a really hard time getting traditional publishers to even read her manuscript and yet Gabriel saw the relevance and beauty in that powerful social justice play.
Photo: Playwright Radha Menon and Gabriel Ndayishimiye Credit: Iman Kaur
Radha’s experience with conventional publishing houses led her to focus on that for her Master’s of Fine Arts thesis titled, Canadian Play Publishing Report, which lays bare the fact that Canadian play publishing is a bastion of white supremacy.
Gabriel found Radha's insights into the Canadian playwright industry truly invaluable and that was the impetus for initial discussions around a potential partnership between her company, Red Beti Theatre, and LivenBooks to address gaps in the publishing market.
Find out why the initiative stalled and what it would take for LivenBooks and Red Beti Theatre to make a larger impact on the publishing world.
Photo: Playwright Radha Menon and Gabriel Ndayishimiye at Art Gallery of Hamilton author talk and book launch. Credit: Iman Kaur
Website: https://www.livenbooks.ca/
Email: gabriel@livenbooks.ca
Thanks to everyone who read today’s article and listened to my podcast. With your continued support, a little Nicoll can make a lot of change.
Music: Real Estate by UNIVERSFIELD is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License. freemusicarchive.org.
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LivenBooks is Gabriel Ndayishimiye's labour of love