Narrative theme: identity / belonging

Book SynopsisWinner of the Aurealis Award for Best Horror NovelFinalist for the Aurealis Award for Best Fantasy NovelFinalist for the Australian Shadow Awards for Best NovelWith the lyrical cadence of The Last Unicorn and intense imagery of A Wizard of Earthsea, The Stone Road is a timeless story of hope, belonging, and growing into your power. Award-winning Australian author Trent Jamieson presents a haunting rural fantasy where the dead speak beneath your feet and twisted monsters hunger for their lost humanity.On the day Jean was born, the dead howled. A thin scratch of black smoke began to rise behind the hills west of town: Furnace had been lit, and soon its siren call began to draw the people of Casement Rise to it, never to return. Casement Rise is a dusty town at the end of days, a harsh world of grit and arcane dangers. While Jean’s stern, overprotective Nan has always kept Casement Rise safe from monsters, she may have waited too long to teach Jean how to face them on her own. On Jean’s twelfth birthday, a mysterious graceful man appears, an ethereal and terrifying being tied to her family’s secrets.Now, Nan must rush Jean’s education in monsters, magic, and the breaking of the world in ages past. If Jean is to combat the graceful man and finally understand the ancient evil that powers Furnace, she will have to embrace her legacy, endure her Nan’s lessons, and learn all she can—before Furnace burns down her world and everyone in it.Trade Review“A coming-of-age story with a dreamlike quality. . . . Those who appreciate fantasy that leans toward fable will gladly follow along on Jean’s journey.” —Booklist“The Stone Road is lovely, hypnotic. I want to drink this book.” —H. A. Clarke, author of The Scapegracers“Trent Jamieson’s The Stone Road is a heart wrapped in thorns. Its world, even as it unpicks itself at the seams, is shot through with bright mysteries. And the novel, like its heroine, holds dear a loving, quarrelling community, even as it understands that towns—like time and people—slip away like dust. The Stone Road is a cycle of mysteries, an invocation of kindness amidst decay, a promise to the living, and blessing for the dead.” —Kathleen Jennings, author of Flyaway“The Stone Road . . . pulls you in and makes you linger over every page. I don’t know which to praise first—the worldbuilding, which had a depth that made it feel neverending; the prose, which made me want to underline whole passages; or the characters. . . . Perfect for fans of classics like The Last Unicorn (which is to say, anyone who likes good books). I know it’s something I’ll be recommending for years to come.” —Katherine Nazzaro, Manager of Porter Square Books: Boston Edition“Trent Jamieson is . . . a significant talent, writing beautifully crafted tales that often have a baroque sensibility and resonate on an emotional level.” —Terra Incognita

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Book SynopsisThe Sellout meets Interior Chinatown in this satirical debut about a German Indian student whose world is upended when she discovers that her beloved professor who passed for Indian is, in fact, white. Nivedita (a.k.a. Identitti), a well-known blogger and doctoral student is, in awe of her supervisor superstar postcolonial and race studies professor Saraswati. But her life and sense of self are turned upside down when it emerges that Saraswati is actually white. Nivedita's praise of Saraswati during a radio interview just hours before the news breaks and before she learns the truth calls into question her own reputation as a young activist. Following the uproar, Nivedita is forced to reflect on the key moments in her life, when she doubted her identity and her place in the world. As debates on the scandal rage on social media, blogs, and among her closest friends, Nivedita's assumptions are called into question as she reconsiders the lessons she learned from her adored professor. In her thought-provoking, genre-bending debut, Mithu Sanyal enlisted the contributions and commentary of real life public intellectuals as if Saraswati were a real person. A darkly comedic tour de force, Identitti showcases the outsized power of social media in the current debates about identity politics and the power of claiming your own voice.Trade Review"A mercilessly funny search for identity that spares nothing and nobody. Anyone who has ever asked themselves who they actually are (and why), will not only be smarter after reading it -- they're also guaranteed to be in a better mood." -Alina Bronsky, author of The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine "A combination of campus novel, intellectual chamber play, blogosphere romp and satire in identity politics. You'll laugh out loud at least three times on each page. Mithu Sanyal has an incredible talent for showing both the effects of freedom of thought pushed to the extreme and the limits of discourse." -Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung "Sanyal actually manages to pack the whole identity-politics debate into one story -- and in such a way that you have to laugh on almost every page." -ZDF "Sanyal portrays her characters in the labyrinth of identity politics with elegance, delicious humor and deep knowledge of the issues. A book for our times." -Der Tagesspiegel

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Book SynopsisNicole Fortin is on the cusp of realizing a long-held dream when her life takes a sudden turn. Instead of participating in the Olympic Games, she finds herself struggling to master the challenging physical demands of her job in an aerospace plant and win the confidence of her male colleagues.As her involvement in union activity deepens, she is drawn into the centre of a bitter labour battle that pits her workmates against their employer.In the midst of this escalating confrontation, incidents from Nicole’s past threaten to destroy her credibility with her coworkers and her relationship with her daughter. Workplace and family ties become tangled and stretched to the breaking point.Trade Review“There’s a lot of trailblazing happening here, and a keen labour story told. … Upton’s style is simple and matter-of-fact, with short chapters lending themselves well to the pace of action and creating a sense of urgency and tension, particularly as the negotiations heat up in the story.” Alison Manley, The Miramichi Reader“Jim Upton’s page turning novel Maker is a fast paced look inside the anatomy of a bitter strike in Montreal’s aerospace industry. The author brilliantly captures the tensions and fears that run through the minds of every striking worker and the enormous pressure loaded onto the shoulders of every bargaining committee member. An excellent read!” Sid Ryan, Former President of the Ontario Federation of Labour“There are precious few Canadian novels about workers and work, and fewer still about industrial work in particular. Fictional accounts of strikes, viewed from the inside, are yet harder to find. In Maker, Jim Upton has crafted a fast-paced portrait of a woman who rises to lead her union through a hard-fought battle against a multinational determined to increase its profits on the backs of Quebec workers.” Elise Moser, author of What Milly Did: the Remarkable Pioneer of Plastics Recycling“Maker is the inside story of life in the skilled trades from the point of view of a real person. It’s not the story of the company as told in the business section. It’s about the struggle for fairness by flesh and blood unionized people who work on the shop floor.” Anne Lagacé Dowson

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