Our Story

Picasso’s famous painting immortalized the victims of a horrendous moment for humanity when fiery nationalists bombs rained down on men, women, children, and animals, reducing the Spanish city of Guernica into ruins. More than ever, that image has become a plea to end wars and man’s inhumanity towards man.

Guernica Editions was founded in Montreal in 1978 by writer and filmmaker Antonio D'Alfonso with the expressed mission to publish books that address social justice issues, discover and cultivate our innate humanity, and transcend individual cultures and nations. In 1991, Guernica’s head office was moved to Ontario where it still resides. In 2010, writers Michael Mirolla and Connie Guzzo-McParland took over the reins from Antonio D’Alfonso, maintaining the same original commitment of tearing down borders and creating ties between cultural and social groups. Since its founding, Guernica Editions has published over six hundred titles. 

We seek out books that are fresh, terse, edgy and self-aware; that dare to cross boundaries and that speak to readers on a universal level.

Apart from our traditional series of prose, poetry, and essays, we house two other imprints.

The MiroLand imprint, created in 2013 under the management of Michael Mirolla and Connie Guzzo-McParland, is a place for our more commercial projects. Since its inception, we have published various genres under its auspices, from genre literature to cookbooks, children’s books, self-help books and memoirs.

Our genre literature includes: mysteries, thrillers, speculative fiction and fantasy.

In 2017, we launched Guernica World Editions, for authors outside of Canada’s borders. To date, we have published authors from the US, the UK, France, Israel, Dubai, Italy, Switzerland, Japan, and many other countries across the world. 

Across our imprints and series, our mission remains the same: to expand our worldview in order to narrow the distance between us. “No Borders, No Limits.”

We are incredibly proud of the authors and titles that have come through our door. From margin to mainstream, this is writing that does it right. 

Guernica is grateful for the financial support of the Canada Council of the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, the Ontario Media Development Corporation, the Canada Book Fund, the Government of Ontario and the Government of Canada.