Gambling With Failure

We have grown accustomed to false bread, robots, androids. Box-office success creates dead cultures, it fossilizes what should palpitate with passion. Success excludes. If the spotlight falls on false bread, and if that false bread is not strong enough to carry the expectations of buyers, people turn away, dissatisfied. Culture is what is left over when there is no more money, after the robots and androids have disappeared. Gambling with Failure is a personal journey into an understanding of how a “weak culture” can become what really counts in the end, how a failure today may be the great work of tomorrow.

Antonio D’Alfonso was born in Montreal, on August 6, 1953. He studied at Loyola College from 1970 to 1975, where he got his B.A. in Communication Arts. Later on, he went to Université de Montréal to complete his M.Sc. in Communication Studies, specializing in Semiology; his thesis was on Mouchette, a film by Robert Bresson. In 1978, he founded Guernica Editions, where he edited over one hundred books by authors from around the world. An author himself, he has published a number of books in French and English. He also worked as a literary critic in numerous magazines across Canada, in both English and French. He has produced three short films, and has collaborated either as scriptwriter, camera person, or as editor on other films. He has regularly given conferences on questions of literature, film, and multiculturalism in Canada, in the U.S.A., and in Europe.