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 […]
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 […]
Yann Martel
I was very tempted to call this entry “The Martels” because in explaining why Yann Martel should be included in Canadian Writers Abroad, I must mention his parents, Émile and […]
Not Getting Married
Empire Girls: the colonial heroine comes of age by Mandy Treagus (University of Adelaide Press 2014) is an academic study of three novels: Olive Schreiner’s The Story of an African […]
Lit Trip: Duncan’s Grave
People flock to Westminster Abbey to visit the Poet’s Corner, where writers are either buried or have a memorial. What is the satisfaction of these literary pilgrimmages? I too indulge […]
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