Category: Reviews
French Exit
“All good things must end,” said Frances Price. (Chapter 1, French Exit) Review of French Exit by Patrick deWitt (London: Bloomsbury Publishing, 2018.)Reviewed by Jane Christmas There is something about […]
Ties that Bind: Washington Black
“That was how it began: me and Big Kit, watching the dead go free.” Finding the ties that bind: Review of Washington Black by Esi Edugyan, published by Patrick Crean Editions, […]
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Tell Us A Story
“Where we did spend time was out on the land, a remarkable land, a beautiful land, a land not seen to this day by the most adventurous of Europeans, whether […]
War, Music, Love
Eva Salomon’s War by Gabriella Goliger (Bink Books 2018; review copy). Reviewed by Debra Martens The first person narrator of this absorbing historical novel is Eva Salomon, who is writing […]
Refuge
More than one character seeks refuge in Merilyn Simonds’s wonderful novel, Refuge (ECW Press 2018 review copy) — about aging, memory, lies, the stories we tell ourselves and others, and […]
Kibbutznik Pick
Canadian Writers Abroad has been searching for a Canadian author in Israel or Palestine. The weather here is getting warm, and so too is the search. Found: a Canadian author […]
The Art of Frances Itani: Review of That’s My Baby
Review of That’s My Baby by Frances Itani, HarperCollins Canada, 2017, hardcover, 345 pages. Reviewed by Debra Martens. Are artists more accessible to authors as characters because artists, as do […]
The Fascinating Fragments of Durga Chew-Bose
Naomi Guttman reviews Too Much and Not the Mood by Durga Chew-Bose, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, NYC, 2017, 221 pages. Review by Naomi Guttman In publishing a book of creative […]
Madeleine Thien in Palestine
Madeleine Thien’s essay, “The Land in Winter,” about her visit to the occupied territory in the West Bank and to Israel, appears in the collection Kingdom of Olives and Ash: […]
Closing 150 with Granta
The literary journal Granta published a special issue on Canada (Autumn 2017) edited by Catherine Leroux and Madeleine Thien. Single-handedly Thien has done more to promote Canadian Literature outside of […]
Mount’s Story
Nick Mount, Arrival: The Story of CanLit (Anansi 2017), 448 pages. Reviewed by Mark Sampson It’s perhaps no accident that the title of Nick Mount’s survey of the so-called “boom […]
Lost: Mum
In the migrations caused by war or persecution, family members are sometimes separated, adding to grief and loss. One finds it hard, then, to imagine that a mother would voluntarily […]
da costa
“Place tends to occupy an important role in my books. The Scent of a Lie is strongly rooted in place, and in my view, the Caima River, the Freita hills […]
Now Comes
In Vienna, she feels shadowed by history, time marching on. -from “Fréhel Takes Her Leave” by Sarah Bernstein Review of Now Comes the Lightning, by Sarah Bernstein (Pedlar Press, St. […]
My My, Drainie
Review of My Jerusalem: Secular Adventures in the Holy City (Doubleday 1994), paperback 287 pages. Reviewed by Debra Martens Bronwyn Drainie spent two years in Jerusalem (1991-1993) with Patrick Martin, […]
What then?
Remembrance Day. Is it enough to remember those who lost their lives fighting in the First World War? Sharon Johnston’s novel, Matrons and Madams (Dundurn 2015), asks us to consider […]
Ah Bon Delisle
The graphic book Chroniques de Jérusalem, by Guy Delisle (Éditions Delcourt 2011) is still relevant although it was published five years ago, and took place from 2009. The book is […]
Singing Her Way
This week Demetra Angelis Foustanellas reviews the historical novel The Goodtime Girl (Cormorant Books 2012) by Tess Fragoulis. You may recall that Foustanellas is our Canadian in Greece. Tess Fragoulis […]
Bones and Marrow
Poet laureate of Toronto from 2009-2012, winner of a Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry in 1997 and the Pat Lowther Memorial Award in 2003, Dionne Brand was born in […]
From Ruins to Hope
This book review by Sonia Saikaley is not about a new book, but Ann Charney’s Life Class (Cormorant Books 2013) is apt for Canadian Writers Abroad, hitting all the right […]
