Warnings about trauma are increasing as studies conclude they are ineffective. These warnings, warning that the content may elicit sensitive, irritating, or disturbing reactions, are now spreading in the art world, a realm of emotional upheaval and aesthetic shock. Museums, literature classes, books, shows, operas warn their visitors, readers and viewers. Check out this phenomenon of trigger warnings or TW for the close friends in a series of texts.
Warnings and TWs can now be recognized in the world of Quebec books. Some publishers refute them for fear of infantilizing the reader. Others now add them to warn of a shocking story and sensitive content, or even out of kindness to the reader, to protect the reader from a nasty surprise, or to re-contextualize a book. Or to make fun of the TW with paradoxical irony. Look at these supplements in the fine print.
David Goudreault’s latest novel Maple (Stanké) opens with an unusual TW: “This work of fiction teems with violence, explicit references to racism, multiculturalism, homophobia, claustrophobia, hard drugs, misandry, misogyny, sexual exploitation, murder, feminicide and suicide. »
“Sensitive readers, abstain. On to the adventure! ” ends the author who proposed this TW “to mock the climate of virtue and good thinking that takes place in the middle”, indicates Marie-Eve Gélinas, director of literary fiction at Librex.
With the editions of La Mèche, Were there any limits, if so I’ve crossed them, but it was ok for love, by Michelle Lapierre-Dallaire, is the only book with a TW also placed at the author’s request. “It’s a book that’s really brutal,” explains publisher Sébastien Dulude. Shocking, very, very difficult to read. For him, TW is “all of this information that we give readers about a book. A vulva is also drawn on the cover of Lapierre-Dallaire. We know what we’re getting into. »
The whole book is a warning
Through the cover, the title, the text on the back of the book – that page we call C4, for “back cover” – the publisher sows information, explains the editor of La Mèche. They’re used to find the right reader… and also to filter out a few others who will put the book back on the shelves because they don’t think it’s for them.
The same reasoning inhabits the Éditions du remue-ménage, where the TWs are nevertheless rejected. “We try to be as comprehensive as possible in the C4 or in the subtitles,” explains communications and marketing manager Stéphanie Barahona. “As for the axe. Slam Westerns About Incest,” by Pattie O’Green (2015).
“The way the book is published (sensitive reader), the way we talk about it (argument), the networks we invest in (communication), the events the book participates in, all this gives the book its coordinates. The whole, by juxtaposition, creates the treatment. »
“In short, we try to balance marketing practices (means) with the subject (purpose) of a book. Rather, it is a process that prevents the instrumentalization and dissemination of trauma and ensures the authenticity of the words spoken by the authors,” Ms. Barahona continues.
“If we went there, all of our books would have to carry TWs and CWs at one level or another [Content Warning] “, reflects the artistic and commercial director Anne Migner-Laurin. “The idea of feminist literature is to disrupt. In order not to spare the world. Our more controversial books often end up in the hands of the most discerning readers, who would feel infantilized or offended if they read a TW on the front page. »
Marie-Eve Gélinas from Librex has a similar thought. For her, paying attention to the sensitivities of the readers is part of the editorial work and the search for truthfulness. As an example, she cites the two novels by Hugo Meunier, Raté (2022) with a disabled character and Olivia Vendetta (2021) with transsexual characters, to which a “committee of sensitive readers” has been added. They have a look shaped by a certain life experience that I don’t have, explains Ms. Gélinas. They complement my expertise. »
Keep away from shock
The new hands-free editions contain a number of books with warnings and TWs: among others, the essay Paroles amérikoises by Pierre Bastien and the Comic Fuites by Stanley Péan and Jean-Michel Girard. As a “new publisher that does not yet have an established relationship with a readership, it was important to show that we are committed to doing things well,” comments Stéphane Despatie, Literary Director.
“The decision to include a warning allows the author a degree of freedom while at the same time protecting the reader from nasty surprises. We believe in not minimizing the path words can take. Reading is also a state of availability; an informed reader will then know whether or not he is ready for this or that proposal that day. »
Rather, it is a process that prevents the instrumentalization and spread of trauma and ensures the authenticity of the words spoken by the authors.
For her part, at Héliotrope editions, the author Catherine Mavrikakis added a long word to her paperback edition. “In 2010 I published The Last Days of Smokey Nelson without asking me any questions, we read. Here, in 2021, I accept the reprint of this text and I must add a word to open it, to come and have a dialogue with the world and what it has become. In 2021, my novel is problematic. His book at that time had passed the second selection of the Prix Femina.
The author takes the voice of a black man and also that of God. She keeps using the word “nigger”. “I still believe that my text is sovereign,” analyzed the author in an interview. But there are new sensitivities, and I’ve seen very well how I could be used if I don’t set an alert. That’s not the fight I want to fight right now. “A caution like this when using a word: ‘To my knowledge, everything is new,'” notes Mathilde Barraband, co-chair of the Franco-Quebec Collaborative Research Chair in Freedom of Expression.
A book is not a pop-up
She, who is also a law and literature scholar at the University of Quebec at Trois-Rivières, believes that a key to thinking about warnings in publishing is to think about the approach to texts that is different from that of films, where warnings prevalence. “We will often buy the book in bookstores or borrow it from the library. Do intermediaries like booksellers or librarians have classifications to warn the public? »
Yes. In the vast majority of libraries, you can only borrow documents from this collection with the child’s subscription card, unless you have the permission of a librarian. The City of Montreal Libraries has a duly identified coup de poin collection for sensitive issue stories aimed at young people.
In bookstores, erotic books or horror books are not next to the children’s sections. “The places where the books are placed is not irrelevant,” continues Ms. Barraband. Can the disclaimer in the book chain then be viewed in the same way as with another cultural product? »
In other words, you don’t start reading the Marquis de Sade by accident. Neither Anne Archet. Regarding remue-ménage, which publishes the latter, Ms Migner-Laurin confirms this: “We don’t come across our books ‘accidentally’. What works for film and television cannot be easily copied from literature. Even less on militant or combat literature. »