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Roy MacSkimming on the Canada Council’s first writing and publishing head

News broke last Friday about Arash Mohtashami-Maali’s appointment to the writing and publishing head position at the Canada Council for the Arts. That occasioned this note, featuring a little historical perspective, from The Perilous Trade author, former Council officer, and Friend of Q&Q Roy MacSkimming:

I don’t know Arash Mohtashami-Maali personally, but it’s interesting to note the parallels between him and the Canada Council’s very first Head of Writing & Publishing, Naïm Kattan.

Like the new Head, Naïm is originally from the Middle East – Iraq. As a Jew he found it unsafe to remain in Baghdad and emigrated to Paris in 1947 to study at the Sorbonne, arriving in Montreal in 1954. Also like the new Head, Naïm is a writer who works in French – a novelist, essayist and literary critic – with some experience as a publisher. He edited a periodical for Montreal’s francophone Jewish community and later moved to Ottawa to work on the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the mid-1960s. He became the Canada Council’s first literary officer in 1967 and de facto Head of the section, since there were no other staff. This was 13 years after his arrival in Canada, comparable to the new Head’s appointment 15 years after immigrating to this country.

Naïm had an exceptionally long career at the Council, remaining Head until 1991 and building up a large staff as new programs were added, especially for book publishing. I worked under him as the officer in charge of block grants from 1977-81. Naim maintained an amazing literary output during his time there, producing not only many books in different genres – some of them translated by Sheila Fischmann and published by M&S and Anansi – but also a weekly literary column in Le Devoir. In his column he often wrote about English-Canadian authors. I think he still teaches in Montreal.

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