Though he is a chronicler of injustice, misery and the need to oppose the status quo, you don’t feel weighed down while reading Nawrocki.
Categories
Book Review
"Canada has seldom been a benevolent international actor. "
A Second Coming, Canadian Migration FictionEdited by Donald F. Mulcahy, Guernica, 348 pages One of the best stories included in the twenty-four chosen by Thomas Mulcahy, editor of this intriguing anthology, has the chilling title, “Mephisto in the Land of […]
Settler Education, is a historically informed book of poetry that roams through Canada’s past, focusing on the destabilizing impact of colonialism, particularly on the indigenous population of North America, but also on European settlers.
Rafiq is a young, second-generation, Indo-Canadian Muslim being implicated in a plot to bomb public places in Toronto.
In these difficult, divisive, often overwhelming times, all of us crave a clear, quiet space
A man awakens from his coma, his caregivers, family and colleagues realize that he suffers from “neglect syndrome”.
The story of a marriage in decline and the reasons that will inexorably lead it to its fatal conclusion
Canadians adopting girl children from China, and “the dark world of transplant tourism” and organ trade in that country and its links to Canada
Chomsky himself has stated on numerous occasions over the years, it is his duty as a citizen of the United States to speak out against the atrocities committed by his country on foreign shores
It is an extraordinary fact that for more than three decades, France never officially acknowledged the Algerian War.
In her recently published memoir Good as Gone, about her marriage with internationally renowned Canadian poet, the late Irving Layton, Anna Pottier boldly asserts that “modern Canadian poetry was born in Irving’s living-room” in his “tiny house” on Kildare Road […]
Nelly Arcand, Breakneck, Anvil Press, 2015, 223 pages. Translation by Jacob Homel Nelly Arcand was a shooting star in Québec’s literary scene. Between her first novel Putain in 2001 (Whore, 2004) and her fourth and last novel Paradis, […]
[Melissa Bull, rue, poems, Anvil Press, 2015, 104 pages] I was handed a copy of Melissa Bull’s debut book of poetry, rue, less than a week after a meaningful exchange with a writer friend. Under late September lamplight, we […]
This is an adaptation of the presentation I gave at the launch of the English-language edition of Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois’ book, In Defiance. It was translated from the 2014 Governor General’s Literary Award winner for nonfiction, Tenir tête (Lux […]
Resilience and Triumph: Immigrant Women Tell their Stories (Second Story Press) is a collection of writings by over 45 women from diverse cultural, linguistic, religious and national backgrounds. Edited and compiled collectively by a group of seven women, it is […]
Yves Engler’s latest book, Canada in Africa: 300 Years of Aid and Exploitation, continues this author’s relentless work not only of speaking truth to power, but also of telling Canadians the truth about themselves. Near the end of his […]
Cope, Karin. What We’re Doing to Stay Afloat. Pottersfield Press, 2015. 96 pages Persephone in Canada Karin Cope, a poet, blogger, photographer, videographer, activist, and sailor works in Halifax, where she teaches, and lives several miles […]
My Multi-Ethnic Friends & Other Stories, Cyril Dabydeen, Guernica Editions, Fall 2013,206 pages I waded into these short stories with no inkling of what shoreline I was leaving, what stones were underfoot, what spirits were alive in the water. […]
G. Willow Wilson is a boundary and border crosser of the rarest variety–a sophisticated political thinker who is also a cracking storyteller. In Alif the Unseen, she gives us a novel whose thriller elements are in perfect equipoise with a […]
An Introduction To Visual Culture, Nicholas Mirzoeff. Routledge, New York, 1999. Visual culture can be described as the mix of different modes of media. In today’s world, a person is not left with a choice and is greeted by a […]
THE LOVE QUEEN OF MALABAR. Memoir of a Friendship with Kamala Das. Merrily Weisbord, McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal, 2010. In order to understand why we should care to read the memoir of a friendship between two writers who were born […]
Ilustrado. By Miguel Syjuco, Hamish Hamilton Canada, an imprint of Penguin Group, 308 pp., Toronto 2010. Miguel Syjuco (pronounced See-hoo-koh), with Ilustrado, has achieved what Salman Rushdie achieved with Midnight’s Children: a brilliant irruption into the literary scene. He also […]
Canada and Israel – Building Apartheid by Yves Engler, a co-publication of Fernwood Publishing and RED Publishing, ISBN: 9781552663554, Publication Date: Feb 2010, Pages: 168 Right off the bat, let’s take an excerpt from a blurb on the book issued by – […]
I am a Japanese Writer. By Dany Laferrière. Translation by David Homel. Douglas & McIntyre, 2010. I am a Japanese Writer is a novel about a writer who is neither Japanese nor speaks Japanese, but is actually Black and hails […]
Jaspreet Singh drips tomato juice from his lips and sucks on mangoes, in a delicious and intricate exercise in culinary commitment and infatuation.
Gao Xingjian, playwright, novelist, essayist and painter born in eastern China and self-exiled in Paris, was named a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French government in 1992. In 2000 he went on to receive the […]
Guerrilla Gardening. A Manualfesto by David Tracey. New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, BC., 2007. The conventional army loses if it does not win. The guerrilla wins if he does not lose. — Henry Kissinger. Guerrilla gardening can be summarily defined […]
Identity and Violence: The Illusion of Destiny Author: Sen, Amartya Publication date: Hardback, Feb. 2006; Paperback: Jan. 2007 Publisher: W. W. Norton ISBN: 0393329291 The notion of a “clash of civilizations,” first made famous in Samuel Huntington’s 1996 work “The […]
Racists. (Kunal Basu, Penguin, 2006). While sipping comforting cocoa in the cafeteria of a high-tech Indian hospital that provides health services internationally, my eyes fell on a book displayed on the shelves of the gift shop. Three words caught my […]
