Goliger’s King David
“The King David Hotel sprawled at the top of a long, sloping hill. Well before I saw the smoke, I could smell the bitter odour. I could see shards […]
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 […]
Reading Abroad
I met Merilyn Simonds on a sunny June day in Toronto to discuss what she might write for Canadian Writers Abroad. Happily we agreed on the importance of reading the […]
Writers Summit
Let’s say you swallow the pretentiousness of the title, with its peaks and important meetings of world leaders, all contained in that word “summit” in the Canadian Writers Summit, held […]
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 […]
Jenna Jarvis
April is National Poetry Month, and on this last day of April, CWA is pleased to present two poems by Jenna Jarvis. Born in Ottawa, Jarvis lives in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, […]
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 […]
2018
Happy New Year! Thank you all contributors, followers, readers and supporters of Canadian Writers Abroad — including all authors. Thanks especially to CWA‘s primary patron, Scott Proudfoot. The literary journey […]
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
Review by Demetra Angelis Foustanellas
Salty 150
Canadian Writers Abroad has kept a low profile through Canada’s 150th celebrations, and finally, serendipity has delivered exactly what’s needed: something from the 100th.
Richler in Jerusalem
In My Jerusalem, Bronwyn Drainie adds the name Mordecai Richler to a list of artists who lived in Yemin Moshe, the neighbourhood where she lived. Elsewhere in her memoir she […]
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, […]
Foster’s Dream Life
Darlene Foster is the author of several books for children about a peripatetic twelve-year old named Amanda Ross, published by Central Avenue Publishing. Foster divides her time between British Columbia […]
James Powell
Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine is not for ten-year-olds, but I tried to read an issue at that age simply because it had belonged to my mother who’d died. I was […]
Clowning Around
In the excerpt below, Inspector Bozo of Clowntown’s homicide squad mulls over the conflict between clowns and mimes, in “A Dirge for Clowntown,” by James Powell. …Bozo decided clowns resented […]
David Walks into a Novel
One of the best ways to understand a country is to read its literature. For that reason my reading habit is to alternate Canadian with local, in this case either […]
Oh My Canada
Twenty years ago, Antony Millen moved to New Zealand from Nova Scotia with his wife and children, where the small town of Taumarunui has been their home. Millen has taught […]
Holy NZ!
Antony Millen’s novel, Redeeming Brother Murrihy (2013) combines The Innocent Traveller with The Heart of Darkness, sending a resentful narrator on a road trip, a quest, that culminates on the […]
Home, yet not home
A new writer for a new year. Louise Ells was studying in the UK while I was living in London. Because I liked her written voice, I invited her to […]
Joe’s ID
Imagine believing something about yourself and your family and then having someone tell you it’s not true. This seems to be what has happened to Joseph Boyden. We’ve met Boyden […]
Ice Land
What better country to write about near Christmas than a land of ice and snow? Iceland has nipped me on the nose thanks to a Canadian writer who made the […]
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 […]
Bourne End
Canadian Writers Abroad is now based in Jerusalem, but as always, the world is our home. I say “we” because over the past couple of years Canadian Writers Abroad has […]
Nalo Hop
On Saturday 18 June, 2016, at Harbourfront in the Fleck Dance Theatre, author Nalo Hopkinson revealed her quick-step mind to an audience that came in part from the four-day Canadian […]
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 […]
June
The summer solstice poem comes, surprisingly to those familiar with her fiction and prose, from Isabel Huggan, who has been writing poetry over the past few years. Together with two […]
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 […]
How to Settle: Theresa Muñoz
Poet Theresa Muñoz was born in Vancouver, where she took a B.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. She left at the age of 22 “to see […]
Cusk’s Writing Class
This review of Outline by Rachel Cusk is written by Kim Reynolds in Ottawa, who has launched an indie publisher, Bookgiddy. Rachel Cusk lives in England, and has done so […]
Falling for the Love of Books
“Let me tell you what it’s like to be edited by Doug Gibson. If he’d edited Shakespeare, there’d be no Shakespeare, it’d all be on the floor.” On the […]
A Maid and her Cow
A recent trip to Durham has caused me to spend more brain cells than I ought mulling over cows and maids. I grew up near Queenston Heights, which was deep […]
Three Lonely Men
The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel (Knopf Canada 2016) 332 pages. Reviewed by Hubert O’Hearn In 1515, the Sultan of Cambay sent the gift of a rhinoceros to […]
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