Search results for ""Exile Editions""

Paul-Émile Borduas had both successes and failures as he tried to express in artwork and words his vision of a generous, spontaneous, creative society. He was the catalyst for events that led to the writing of an important social and artistic manifesto, Refus global (Total Refusal, in translation with Exile Editions) published in 1948 by the movement known as Les automatistes. Jean-Philippe Warren shows us the reversals and contradictions that make up this cultural figure, renowned for both his art and his thought. How his early hopes and doubts fermented in the crucible that is the mind of a young man. And how his attempts to find a new voice reflect the changes of a society trying to come to terms with a troubling and elusive modernity. Ultimately, Warren looks to understand the path that led Borduas to adopt a pictorial approach that was a clean break with the academicism of his time. He studies a man who broke early with the Catholic religion of his childhood, and who tried to replace it with a radically different ethic. At the same time, he suggests that Borduas came from an ambiance of Catholic intellectuals and artists who shared many of his progressive views and were also critical of the church's attitude to society and art. This is a remarkable portrait of one of our greatest artists and intellectuals, and shines a new light on a crucial turning point in the history of Québec and Canada.

Read more less

The CVC Anthology series features each year's finalists from the annual $15,000 Carter V. Cooper (CVC) Short Fiction competition, held in memory of Carter Cooper ($10,000 for the best story by an emerging writer, and $5,000 for the best story by a writer at any career point). From writer, artist, philanthropist-and mother of Carter-Gloria Vanderbilt, who began one of the largest literary prizes for emerging writers in Canada: "I am proud and thrilled that all these wonderful writers are presented in the CVC Anthology. Carter, my son, Anderson Cooper's brother, was just 23 when he died in 1988. He was a promising editor, writer, and, from the time he was a small child, a voracious reader. Carter came from a family of storytellers, and stories were a guide which helped him discover the world. Though I, and those who loved Carter, still hear his voice in our heads and in our hearts, my son's voice was silenced long ago. I hope this prize helps other writers find their voice, and through inclusion in the annual anthology helps them touch others' lives with the mystery and magic of the written word.

Read more less

Truth or fiction? In A Fine Line Marc SÉguin revisits the boy, the adolescent, and the young man he once was - all three tormented by incessant worry, they now haunt the renowned painter, film director, and author he has become. His profound, striking reflections - shaped by deaths, confessions put to the test, a friendship destroyed, and memories of the beautiful Arielle - masterfully punctuate this story about a man who regrets not having loved enough… or perhaps having loved too late.

Read more less

Eating is a symbolic and magical act, a transformation, a covenant, a ritual, a comfort, a necessity - but all through history, food-themed stories have also had their dark sides. Food can be integral to the magic, the meetings, the processes of fantastical fiction: from myth and legend to high fantasy, from hard-science speculative fiction to post-modern magic realism, from Hansel and Gretel to Soylent Green, from Persephone to 2001, from Alice in Wonderland to Alien. In this anthology, Ursula Pflug and Candas Jane Dorsey, two award-winning senior writers of literary speculation, have gathered a range of speculative writing that recognizes both our attraction to the candy coating and our fascination with the poisoned apple. Paired with each story is a recipe, real or fantastical, for food mentioned in the story: consume at your own risk!

Read more less

If you love entertainment that makes you laugh out loud while highlighting the absurdity in issues that are actually pretty serious, then you'll be a big fan of this illustrated satirical fiction that is a poignant illustrated story about an aging woman's life as she reflects on passing her years in anonymity. 'Doris? You asked me who was Doris?' And then I remembered. 'Doris was the woman who worked one of our cash registers at FoodWorld, forever and maybe even longer. But nobody knew a thing about her, or even wanted to because she was plain as a post, always kept to herself, with buttoned lip saying nothing. And then we guessed one day she must be dead because for a whole week she wasn't there at the Cash. Till we heard rumor she'd left behind her house to someone she'd never known, who'd found in the house this journal full of crazy stories Doris had written, and piles and piles of drawings and paintings so fantastic you'd never believe anyone could see herself like that. The secret life of Doris Melnick! The woman not one of us knew though she'd been there all that time. So what does that mean, I wonder?' - Statement by Alice Geerson, FoodWorld clerk

Read more less

In the Innu language, amun means 'gathering'. Under the direction of Michel Jean, the Innu writer and journalist, this collection brings together Indigenous authors from different backgrounds, First Nations, and generations. Their works of fiction sometimes reflect history and traditions, other times the reality of First Nations in Quebec and Canada. Offering the various perspectives of well-known creators, this book presents the theater of a gathering and the speaking out of people that are too rarely heard. Included are original texts by Joséphine Bacon, Natasha Kanapé Fontaine, Naomi Fontaine, Virginia Pésémapéo Bordeleau, Melissa Mollen Dupuis, Jean Sioui, Alyssa Jérôme, Maya Cousineau-Mollen, Louis-Karl Picard-Sioui, and Michel Jean.

Read more less

This is an original, enthralling, wild, viscerally exciting and often bleakly funny urban story about Randy Gogarty. He is a free spirit, full of lust, full of himself, and he's lonely. He sets out for Elk Brain, Saskatchewan, intent to set the newspaper world on fire. But it is he who goes up in flames. Confused by idealism and loyalties, he gets fired and then tries to survive a prairie winter with hard drink, car trips across wide open spaces full of grandeur, and his beloved whom he tells ”lovely women eat, a crazy salad with their meat" while pouring canola oil on her body in a cold bedroom. Kelly, according to the Vancouver Sun “…never writes a boring sentence…” in a story that emerges from dark reality through a series of sublime ruminations told in an inimitable style—it is full of wonder and life and love, poignant insights, and irrepressible humour as Gogarty ultimately is saved from himself and the dour forces around him in a totally unexpected way. No reader will forget this satirical, desperate, beautiful debut, voted best first novel of the year when it was originally published.

Read more less

Poems about getting old and not liking it. About getting high on Christmas Eve. About a hole in the sky where Toronto's landmark Honest Ed's used to be. About killing mosquitoes and petting strange dogs and a homeless man who feeds the pigeons who are always happy to see him. About tuning out and turning off and unplugging. About friends who've died and confused skyscrapers on foggy days and Nabokov in his underwear. About shame in the evening, regret in the morning, and, if there's time, a nap in the afternoon. About a world where the Clash is classic rock and experience killed curiosity and the corpse wondered what's next. And "Why I Am Not a Poet," an introductory memoir about growing up and becoming a writer in Toronto in the 80s and 90s—it's long gone bars, bookstores, and people—is a lively preface to the poetry.

Read more less

Wise and humorous stories that explore people’s extraordinary lives in suburbia’s little wild spaces. Routinely maligned as a bastion of boredom and conformity, the suburb is examined in a different light in Dreamers and Misfits of Montclair. At the heart of these fourteen short stories is refusal of the monotonous and the struggle for individuality in a place so relentlessly homogenous. In his third short story collection, Mark Paterson introduces the town of Montclair, a fictional suburb in the North Shore of Montreal, where he celebrates characters who, out of restlessness, out of nothing, make their lives on the outskirts of the big city a little bit – or a lot – out of the ordinary. With Paterson’s trademark humour and emotion, Dreamers and Misfits of Montclair explores suburbia’s little wild spaces: the places hidden away in overgrown fields behind commercial buildings, beneath concrete schoolyard staircases, and in the hearts and minds of its inhabitants.

Read more less

Written in a baroque, multilayered style tinted with both lyricism and humor, this is the story of Fabrizio Notte, a filmmaker who makes documentaries on hit men. Invited to show his latest piece at a film festival in his home town of Montréal, he receives mixed reviews and begins to question himself. The trip serves as a pretext for an existential pilgrimage towards love and belonging, ultimately leading him back through time, through the vast, moving landscape that is memory, to his first love and ultimately, to himself.

Read more less

A story of a boy and his dog and their adventures, which will appeal to the many children who are dog lovers. It is also a sensitive story of love and loss, and of making a new life for oneself. Although it was first published seventy years ago, only a few details (such as clothing) really indicate that it is not a contemporary story. Luke is not yet 12 when his father dies of a heart attack, leaving him an orphan. Small for his age and something of a loner, he moves from the city to the country to live with his aunt and uncle. He is naturally homesick and grieving the loss of his father. His well-meaning and kindly aunt and uncle do their best for him; but his only real friend and comfort becomes Dan, the farm's elderly, one-eyed collie. Practical Uncle Henry considers Dan useless now that he is too old to be a watch-dog and decides that Dan should be "put down." Luke, whose sense of dignity and loyalty transcend the practical, frantically tries to save Dan's life, providing for heart-racing suspense as he makes his stand against the expedient world of adults.

Read more less

A dynamic collection of stories that explore the mystery, awe and dread that we may have felt as children when encountering a special toy. But it goes further, to the edges of space, where games are for keeps and where the mind plays its own games. We enter a world where the magic may not have been lost, where a toy plays for keeps or computers and gods vie for the upper hand. Dolls, stuffed animals, wooden games of skill, ancient artifacts misinterpreted, and items that seek a life or even revenge; these lost toys and games bring tales of companionship, loss, revenge, hope, murder, cunning, and love, to be unearthed in the sandbox.

Read more less

An unyielding fever of 103, the Sochi Olympics, and a state of inspirational semidelirium came together as Vladimir Azarov sat in front of his television, images swirled in his mind like a waltzing kaleidoscope. Memories from decades past were triggered as the Pussy Riot girls were being whipped by Cossacks.Marilyn Monroe of Some Like It Hot became his muse while he composed recollections: his first trip to Sochi in 1962; sitting with Henry Moore at his home in Much Haddam; discussing verisimilitudes with Pasolini, art with Frank O’Hara, film and acting with Leni Riefenstahl; shock at terrorists killing Israelis in Munich. As the 2014 Games ended, his fever abated. This remarkable book of poems arose from those two weeks.

Read more less

A fascinating book that is much more than a tragic personal story, more than a picture of how brain injuries will strain relationships with family, co-workers, health care professionals and a legal system not adequately empowered to respond to an individual's needs, let alone the thousands who have suffered long after their initial injury. All too often it seems few are able to overcome the adversities of such situations, to move on with their life, or to ultimately find a peace within themselves… but Alan J Cooper has done that with this book, reflecting on his life, so that his words may offer help and guidance to the many brain-injured people and their loved ones.

Read more less

George McWhirter grounds his delightful characters in the real, while his sharp wit and creative scenarios border on the fantastical: a woman adopts a dolphin-man; an Irish madam runs a railroad bordello in the desert; a devoted husband drives his childless, belly-dancing wife to Greek tavernas with the ambition to quicken their lagging fertility; a Kurdish barber has a cure for hair loss, but not the loss of his wife and family in Iraq; a Mexican campesino swears his machete-severed ear is a sea shell tuned to the Pacific Ocean.The Gift of Women is about religion and sexuality, the surreal and the magical, a tale-telling of earthy and incendiary women, capable of setting a man, a valley, and an entire island on fire.

Read more less

This collection contains a series of stories about travels abroad from a queer perspective, each crafted with a distinct spirit and intent and with prose that elicits a cross-pollinating of personal and emotional insight—a special achievement that enables two hemispheres to join through the epicenter of the 2004 Asian tsunami.Author Matthew R. Loney's use of language is rich in description, full of lucid and lively textures, smells, and sensations as a way to transport readers to places they might not travel themselves. Each person and place becomes a thread in a revelatory tapestry, each transition of setting a steppingstone for discovery and adventure. With striking vividness, the author takes readers from familiar departure lounges to foreign cities steeped in history, from enticing turquoise beaches for which everyone longs to desolate mountain ranges well off the beaten track, from consecrating baths in the sacred Ganges to fringe indulgences in Cambodian brothels—and back home, to a northern Canadian cabin where the father of a tsunami victim reels in the quiet aftershocks of grief as the rubble of his memories drag him toward further destruction.That Savage Water is an exceptional debut that explores the mechanisms of connectivity and the intrinsic entanglements that link people, their diverse cultures, and how they take the country they call home with them as they make their way through places they may, on their way, easily call their homes away from home. The message: anonymity while traveling in foreign landscapes can both free and isolate people through the friends they make, the risks they take, the foods and places they love and hate, and at times the depravities they face as they pass through those alluring settings called "abroad.

Read more less

This modern-day crime/psychological thriller is set against a backdrop of intolerance and narrow-mindedness, ambiguous motives and suspicious alibis. Its sinuous plot and complex characters take the reader on a suspense-filled journey of discovery. Sara, born to a Muslim mother and a Jewish father, is a Canadian archaeology student who has moved to Jerusalem. She soon realises that Israel is a country where questions of faith and religion are inextricably mixed with politics and daily life—all too often creating deeply rooted frontiers and barriers in the souls of the people who live there.As she confronts the two seemingly opposing sides of her family's origins and wonders how she can she live and love in such a turbulent environment, Sara suddenly goes missing. Her father heads from Montreal to Jerusalem to find out what happened to her. There he joins her friends, professors, and the police officer charged with the investigation in an agonising waiting game and learns that there were parts of her life she hadn't shared with anyone.

Read more less

Caught up in a world of chaos, Nuovo Kahid struggles to remember the details of one fateful night before it’s all too late in this gripping political thriller. In a North American city in the near future, a great economic summit is getting under way, and Kahid is the journalist assigned to cover it. Meanwhile, Villanueva, a crumbling modern city rife with corruption, is falling into ruin as a meteor makes its way towards Earth.

Read more less

Presenting a comprehensive collection of influential Yiddish women writers with new translations, this anthology explores the major transformations and upheavals of the 20th century. Short stories, excerpts, and personal essays are included from 13 writers, and focus on such subjects as family life; sexual awakening; longings for independence, education, and creative expression; the life in Europe surrounding the Holocaust and its aftermath; immigration; and the conflicted entry of Jewish women into the modern world with the restrictions of traditional life and roles. These powerful accounts provide a vital link to understanding the Jewish experience at a time of conflict and tumultuous change.

Read more less

Eighty-five stories by one of Canada’s greatest writers are collected in this four-volume anthology. Several pieces of Morley Callaghan’s short fiction are collected here for the first time, while some which have been out of print for decades are now made available. Each volume contains a section providing the year of publication for each story, a question-and-answer section, and comprehensive editorial notes. As a whole, this series is essential reading for understanding the growth and importance of Canadian literature.

Read more less

The banquet that is daily life is celebrated in this accessible compilation of poems that comprises the poet’s 12th collection, illustrating the loves, joys, and fears of the human race. The featured pieces explore the various things people consume—whether in the form of food or everyday experience—expressing the universal idea of “bread” in the form of poetry. Providing unique insights into what is otherwise overlooked, this series of poems delves into the simplest relationships and observations, offering sustenance for the emotions, psyche, and soul.

Read more less

Presenting a culmination of surrealist exercises, this collection of poems is based on words and phrases from Hebdomeros, the only novel ever written by painter Giorgio de Chirico. Through an assortment of verse, the novel’s protagonist is transformed into an irascible mini-dictator ruling over an unruly realm—perhaps a metaphor for the Self—upon which he attempts to impose ideas of order and beauty. "The Hebdomerous Suite" is accompanied by "the Bronzino Poems," which draw from both accurate and purposefully erroneous interpretations of Deborah Parker’s book, Bronzino: Renaissance Painter and Poet. The resulting pieces celebrate not only the formation of art but creation in general, bringing a greater awareness to global cultures and traditions.

Read more less

The short stories in this collection explore the personal journeys of women and the men they love and release. They follow women who take large risks, travel alone, and love solitary men, yet remain open, feminine, and vulnerable despite sorrow and betrayal. Thoughtful and tender, the stories illustrate what women experience as they carry their crosses from station to station.

Read more less

In this frank and moving memoir, the author recalls growing up in a poor and alcohol-ridden neighborhood of a small city before and during World War II. Following his experiences after the war, the narrative relates the shattering of his mother’s dreams and his own inability to bridge the gulf between himself and his alcoholic father, casting a dark shadow over his childhood. The account reveals how the protagonist never permitted his rocky beginnings to affect his hope for the future, portraying his survival in a bleak environment and of the early road traveled in becoming a man of honor, reputation, and respect as a judge of the Superior Court of Ontario. Also featuring a diverse selection of the author’s poetry, this anthology reflects not only the author’s experiences on the bench but the empathy and compassion for the underdog that he learned while growing up on Simcoe Street.

Read more less

A literary approach to the Word of the Lord, this collection of short fiction deals with—in one way or another—the overarching concept of redemption. This anthology demonstrates how God appears again and again in the lives of priest, pastors, nuns, and Pentecostals. However He appears, He appears again and again in the lives of priests, nuns, and Pentecostals in these great stories of a kind never collected before—those by Jacques Ferron, Morley Callaghan, Hugh Hood, Gloria Sawai, Mavis Gallant, Leon Rooke, Barry Callaghan, Séan Virgo, Kenneth J. Harvey, Claire Dé, Marie-Claire Blais, Hugh Garner, and more. Not only is the religious material presented in an approachable manner, but it also fosters reflection and discussion and is perfect for courses on short fiction or general symposium teaching material.

Read more less

Tragedy, comedy, and historical fiction come together to relate this bittersweet childhood tale. Set in Nazi-occupied southern France, the story follows young Dominique, who is a mere seven years old when his father is arrested by the Gestapo in May of 1943. The protagonist then flees Marseille with his mother and cousin Gérard, escaping starvation and seeking the safety of the countryside. Chronicling the liberation of the Jewish people, the narrator's miraculous reunion with his father, and the father's amazing story of survival, this moving novel illustrates the challenges of starting life all over again.

Read more less

Exploring contemporary life and the penetrating energy of youth, this novel follows Anna, an introspective, alienated teenager without hope. Anna and her friend Michelle have experienced what life today has to offer—they have experimented with drugs and sex and have taken dance and music lessons in an attempt to find some meaning in their existence—and yet they have rejected its premise and instead remain alone and empty. Chilling and often terrifying, this chronicle portrays two young women who are not bored but are instead without hope of finding peace or even living long enough to begin the search.

Read more less

With a stunning command of the Greek language and a mastery of poetic nuance, this translation of Euripides' play breathes unparalleled life into an ancient masterpiece. Using vocabulary that gives the sense that the play was written with an appreciation of and application to the 20th and 21st centuries, this adaptation goes beyond the timeless plot of the consequences of war and the fate of both the victors and the losers and focuses on the modern-day issues of feminism and women's rights. Also included in this volume are two long poems—"Helen" and "Orestes"—by contemporary Greek poet Yannis Ritsos, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize.

Read more less

A unique collaboration that explores themes of love and family, this collection features poems that are based on works of art placed alongside the very works that inspired them. It includes paintings by Natalka Husar; drawings, monotypes, and lithographs by Claire Weissman Wilks; and photographs by Goran Petkovsky.

Read more less

Using delicate prose and intense imagery, this translation explores the relationship and struggle of the human body and its inner being. Completely paralyzed by Lou Gehrig’s disease, Magali is imprisoned in her own body, able to communicate only by blinking her eyes. Feeling mentally free but physically trapped, she reflects on her past and regards her present physical existence as a prison. A relationship formed between Magali and her doctor gives one of them the hope to live and the other the grace to die.

Read more less

Vladimir Azarov was a child of the Soviet Kazakhstan steppes. When his mother discovered that he had a slight curvature of the spine, with her own loving humor she nicknamed him Richie, after Richard III, the 14th century English king, himself crooked, made famous as a monster by Shakespeare.At the same time Azarov suffered a vision-altering wound to his eye that transformed the way he perceived the world, both real and imagined. The wound eventually healed and, as he grew up feeling a wry kinship to the king, his bent eye became that of a visionary, of an artist who was a convention-breaking architect, and finally as a poet, not writing in Russian, but in the King's English. When, not long ago, the actual bones of Richard III were found under a parking lot in Leicester town, Azarov - now in his 80s living in Toronto, and remembering his kinship by name - envisioned the archeological dig and re-interment of the bones, and he became one in his mind with the reputation-renovated and redeemed king. He became, at last, Richie-Richard III, being sung to on a rainy day, over a new grave, by medieval knights.

Read more less

Selected by translator Dasha C. Nisula, this unique volume traces the development of modern free verse that extends from Croatia on the Adriatic to Russia in the East. Included are early pieces from the West to East Slavic belt, with the majority of the works focusing on the Russian Whitmanist Vladimir Burich, and the contemporary master of free verse in Russia, Vyacheslav Kupriyanov. A volume that captures feeling, essence, rhythm, and depth through superb translations.

Read more less

Born to be an outsider because of a rare genetic disorder, Kallmann syndrome, Brian Brett lived an androgynous childhood of abuse and sexual harassment. In his teen years he slid into the waterfall of poetry, becoming an auto-didactic polymath, writing - as he says - 'sideways' to the academic poetry of his times.Though raised into manhood in the back of a bootlegger's truck, Brett, as the hometown outsider, took on the outside world, delving into ancient alchemical mysteries, the poètes maudit of Jean-Arthur Rimbaud's days, the rhythms of various tribal cultures, the talking blues, the rhapsodic illuminations of jazz, all the while gathering field notes from nights around camp fires.To Your Scattered Bodies Go is a collection of poems written over the past twenty years, a collection that speaks with a child's open directness, in fierce ironies, a sometimes bent logic, a justifiable fear of his body, of loves won and lost, and the hallelujahs of a man standing on the lip of the grave. Brett has a unique spirit, a unique musical voice.

Read more less

For some six decades Barry Callaghan has been a singular presence in Canada. His distinctive literary style, tone and temperament reveal him to be an inquisitive observer, thoughtful commentator, and assiduous craftsman. Always attuned to history and in covert search of adventure, he is also a public scholar, unflinching before the harsh complexities of our time. Raise You on the River is the fourth volume of essays from Canada's Man of Letters.

Read more less

2018 marks the tenth anniversary of an International Congress that gathered in Ghent to celebrate and discuss the work of Etty Hillesum, a woman who died in Auschwitz, whose diaries and letters have been translated into 67 languages. She is unquestionably one of the most singular voices from the Holocaust. But most in our country have never heard of her. So, who was Etty Hillesum? She was a Dutch Jew who died at the age of 29, leaving behind deeply moving, intellectually profound diaries and letters written during the last two years of her life under Nazi occupation. We only have these works because she threw them from a train on her way to the death camp. This volume is their visionary responses to Etty Hillesum.

Read more less

From writer, artist and philanthropist, Gloria Vanderbilt, who sponsors one of the largest literary prizes in Canada, and who supports this unique Canadians-only short fiction publication. "I am proud and thrilled that all these wonderful writers are presented in the CVC Anthology. Carter, my son, Anderson Cooper's brother, was just 23 when he died in 1988. He was a promising editor, writer, and, from the time he was a small child, a voracious reader. Carter came from a family of storytellers, and stories were a guide which helped him discover the world.

Read more less

Hugh Graham captures the passage of years, the progression of accumulation and recurrence, the present as dammed up history. Without warning, a world on the road to epiphany. And that world, threatened with disaster. Figures emerge, often from twilight. Children who do not fear death, travelers doomed to inertia, concupiscent women, bloody-minded intellectuals, haunted drunks, decaying diplomats, and Death as the man in the attic room. In the end, the gaze of a child become a man. Eleven stories of clarity and dark empathy.

Read more less

Extra Illicit Sonnets chronicles a love affair between a man and a woman of different complexions, cultures, continents, and generations, Sonia Fuentes of Andorra and Luca Xifona of Canada. She is Spanish in heritage; and he is Maltese. She is a Boomer and he is of Generation Y-Not. The poetry consists mainly of unrhymed – or blank – sonnets. It is transcendent and dangerous verse because it addresses humanity's most complex and volatile passion.

Read more less

The best of today's Canadian short fiction is showcased in this fourth annual volume of the Carter V. Cooper Short Fiction Anthology series, which features the 12 stories short-listed—among them winners Jason Timermanis and Hugh Graham—for the 2014 $15,000 Vanderbilt/Exile Short Fiction Competition.The book contains contemporary writing that reflects a diversity in emerging and established Canadian writers, including Gregory Betts, K'ari Fisher, Matthew R. Loney, Helen Marshall, George McWhirter, Susan P. Redmayne, Linda Rogers, Leon Rooke, Madelaine Sonik, Erin Soros. Following the stories are biographies of each contributor.

Read more less

The Witherspoon family, descendants of New England Puritans involved in the 17th-century witchcraft trials, have inherited an unspoken secret that binds them to each other and to their ancient hilltop house in Madawaska Valley where the lives of four generations of women named Sibyl have unfolded. The story centers on the youngest Sibyl who, vowing to change her fate, flees to the city. Three years later she is forced to return to look for her missing grandmother.Alone in her birthplace, history superimposes itself on reality as she is pulled into the darkness of her ancestral past. But with the resilience of her Puritan forefathers, Sibyl confronts her family secrets, emerging with a clarity that culminates in the novel’s startling climax. The Crying Out is a daring first novel that draws the reader into its haunted world through the power of language and imagery. The highly charged, voice-driven narrative weaves back and forth between the 17th and 20th centuries, integrating past and present, love and betrayal, madness and sanity. By exploring the history of one family, Diane Keating speaks to the eternal question of what makes us who we are.

Read more less

Forty years after Pablo Neruda’s death, this compilation of his sonnets, unlike previous translations, captures the true spirit and verbal dexterity of his lesser-known genre. Pablo Neruda is still one of the most widely read, influential and beloved 20th-century poets. He was a Nobel Laureate, famous for his politically engaged lyrics, who also wrote these bold and sensual sonnets.In this new edition, the poems are followed by three essays on reading Neruda and his poetic effect by the notable poets and translators A. F. Moritz, Beatriz Hausner, and Toronto’s Poet Laureate (2012–2015) George Elliott Clarke, as well as a new afterword by the translator, questions for discussion, and recommended readings.

Read more less

A wonderful look at Soviet-era life as witnessed from the edge of the empire, this book is comprised of letters, poems, and prose pieces that together create a narrative. Through an entirely original form, Vladimir Azarov, who trained to be an architect in Moscow during Stalin's Iron Curtain years, begins with a simple exploratory exchange of letters between him and a faceless bureaucrat during his days overseeing the design and construction of the Soviet Embassy in the isolated republic of Mongolia. What follows is an unfolding sequence that finds Azarov meeting a remarkable Mongolian woman and later discovering the memoirs of one of Russia's greatest poets, Anna Akhmatova, eventually revealing an unlikely love story between the Mongolian woman and Akhmatova's son. This enthralling account serves as both a cultural study and an exploration of the human condition.

Read more less

In this collection, award-winning author Austin Clarke has caught, in his characters, a sweet longing for youth and an anxiety-stricken rage at old age; an immigrant’s longing for a placid, lost home and his lust for a new high-speed motorcar life; and an intellectual’s sense of empowerment by black history even as he watches what little he knows about such history engulf him. These are intense and private lives made public by the force of their individual voices, voices that may be rambunctious and fractious but that are, nonetheless, elegant in their intent and humor and their acceptance that is never acquiescence. The volume also includes a prose portrait of Austin Clarke by acclaimed author Barry Callaghan.

Read more less

A tribute to the architects and visionaries who have had a hand in shaping Vladamir Azarov's inner landscape, this book of poetry celebrates that which holds the world together. From Van Gogh and Gauguin's tempestuous relationship in Arles to the dichotomies of modern-day Tokyo where the bustle of a giant metropolis is set against the Zen calm of monks and cathedral builders, the worlds of architecture and poetry are united in this collection.

Read more less

Subversive, edgy, and wildly entertaining, this short story collection is a unique encounter with fiction in Leon Rooke’s characteristic style as he peels back the skin of social convention and embraces the chaos of life with characters and themes as unpredictable as an assassin who murders the words in your memory; Egi Balducchi who is either a recording angel or a mad old man with a wheelbarrow; Eli's daughter, Frannie, who may just be a gentle two-bit hooker, or the Virgin herself; and is that really God, shrugging off insults from Isaac Babel and Guy de Maupassant? Then there is Lap the Dog who escapes gunshot and poison, and heads cross-country to find the human survivors; a glimpse into the life of Joyce Carol Oates; the philosopher Heidegger in a fight with Hannah Arendt; the Indian Chief who is denied his professorship at Yale when he turns up for the ceremony with a black princess on his arm; and more... Wide World in Celebration and Sorrow is an evocative short story collection that is wild with laughter, confronting pathos, rage and humour in ways that only Rooke’s writing could approach.

Read more less

In exploring the topic of health, this collection of poetry tackles a crucial aspect of our lives—but one that is rarely a subject of contemporary art. Playful, satirical, surreal, yet unflinchingly humane, the poems introduce men with wands to patrol their neighborhoods, past selves smuggling themselves aboard airplanes, and unhappy people trying their luck on a psychological wheel of blame.

Read more less

Combining romance with the darker side of human nature, this novel opens with the hanging of an ex-World War I soldier for involuntary murder. The element of violence blends with a love story involving the late soldier's sister, who seeks to possess the life of her brother's closest friend, John Hughes. Hughes then finds himself drawn into the circle affected by the hanging, contemplating murdering the sister himself. Capturing the terror of a war abroad as it penetrates the tranquility of a small town, this tale illustrates how a man's death can haunt those who endure his execution.

Read more less

From movie buffs and film students to anyone who enjoys true-crime stories or is interested in U.S. politics, this companion to a critically acclaimed biopic offers a rare glimpse into the creative process of cinema. A mix of Reservoir Dogs, Goodfellas, and Oliver Stone’s W, George Hickenlooper's Casino Jack explores the complex figure at the center of the biggest scandal to hit Washington after Watergate—Jack Abramoff, a political operative who worked the back alleys of Republican administrations around the globe from Nicaragua to Angola. The screenplay begins with Abramoff’s arrest by the FBI in Los Angeles in 2005 and the Mafia-style murder of the Florida casino owner Gus Boulis, then goes back in time to George Bush’s inauguration in 2000, which Abramoff celebrates with the powerful House Leader, Tom DeLay. From there Abramoff proceeds to gain a multimillion-dollar fortune lobbying on behalf of dodgy Asian sweatshop owners and gullible Indian casino proprietors—all the while wining and dining the big players in Washington. This illustrated companion to the film features the complete screenplay in script form, a foreword by the film’s writer Norman Snider, an introduction and photo diary by the film’s director George Hickenlooper, 10 storyboards, an afterword by film critic F. X. Feeney, and more than 50 film stills interspersed throughout the text.

Read more less