Blue Shirts

While Adolf Hitler was seizing power in Germany, Adrien Arcand was laying the foundations in Quebec for his Parti national social chretien. The Blue Shirts, as its members were called, wore a military uniform and prominently displayed the swastika. Arcand saw Jewish conspiracy wherever he turned and his views resonated with his followers who, like him, sought a scapegoat for all the ills eroding society. Even after his imprisonment during the Second World War, the fanatical Adrien Arcand continued his correspondence with those on the frontlines of anti-semitism. Until his death in 1967, he pursued his campaign of propaganda against communists and Jews. Hugues Theoret describes a dark period in Quebec's ideological history using an objective approach and careful, rigorous research in this book, which won the 2015 Canada Prize (Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences).

"In his book Les chemises bleues, Hugues Theoret [covers] a very serious subject: the life of Adrien Arcand, an intellectual and militant anti-Semite between 1930 and 1960 ... , producing a patient, nuanced, humanist, and contextualized narrative. Without a trace of sterile polemic, overinterpretation or an overly personal position, this book is an invaluable resource for understanding, from a Quebecois and Canadian perspective, a phenomenon that recurs throughout human history and that is not confined to Europe: hate speech." -- Canada Prize 2014 Jury

Hugues Theoret holds a PhD in History (University of Ottawa). A journalist, media relations officer and intergovernmental affairs consultant, he has collaborated on a number of documentary series for television on the history of Canada. He is also editor of a historical journal in the Outaouais region and lectures on fascism and anti-semitism in Canada. Ferdinanda Van Gennip is the translator of several works of non-fiction, including A Nation Beyond Borders: Lionel Groulx on French-Canadian Minorities by Michel Bock (University of Ottawa Press, 2014), Breaking Point: Quebec/Canada, the 1995 Referendum by Mario Cardinal (Bayard Canada/CBC, 2005) and How to Befriend Your Shadow by John Monbourquette (Darton, Longman and Todd, 2001). She holds a BA in French Translation and French-Canadian Studies from Queen's University and an MDiv from the Toronto School of Theology. Howard Scott translates poetry, fiction and non-fiction, often with co-translator Phyllis Aronoff, including works by Madeleine Gagnon, Kim Dore and Madeleine Monette, as well as numerous scholarly works in the humanities. He has also published translations of poetry by Madeleine Gagnon, Michel Pleau and Natasha Kanape Fontaine, and science fiction by Elisabeth Vonarburg. In 1997, he won the Governor General's Literary Award for English translation for The Euguelion, by Louky Bersianik. He is a past president of the Literary Translators' Association of Canada.