| As we move into spring, publishers are releasing a new crop of books featuring fiction, poetry and more from writers like John Metcalf, Jim Christy, Ken Norris and Dennis Lee. Here are some titles to look forward to from some of the best literary presses in Canada:
Fiction
· After two brilliant collections of short stories, Kent Nussey's long-awaited first novel, A Love Supreme (Mansfield Press), blends religious Romanticism with the music of the bebop greats.
· Cormorant Books will release the English version of Wild Cat by the Quebec novelist Jacques Poulin, translated by Sheila Fischman.
· Darwin Alone in the Universe is a new collection of short fiction by master satirist M.A.C. Farrant (Talonbooks), which explores the ways we create meaning through literature, in defiance of corporate constructions of history.
· The redoubtable Porcupine's Quill has After All, the last collection of short stories by the late, undeniably great Hugh Hood, and Forde Abroad, a new novella by John Metcalf, a meticulous, drastically underappreciated writer.
·Douglas Glover, author of The Life and Times of Captain N., has a new novel of the collision of the Old and New Worlds, Elle (Goose Lane).
· Jim Christy, Canada's literary equivalent of Tom Waits, has a new collection of stories for the hard-boiled among us, Tight Like That (Anvil).
· The House of Anansi Press gives us a tome for the ages: Anne Hébert's Collected Later Novels.
Art and literary criticism
· Birth of a Bookworm by Michel Tremblay, translated by Sheila Fischman (Talonbooks), is a love story of this national treasure for his muses, the books that got under his skin.
· Carol Shields: The Arts of a Writing Life edited by Neil K. Besner (Turnstone) collects essays, memoirs and interviews from both sides of the Atlantic, and by friends, family, and Shields herself.
· Margaret Atwood: Works & Impact by Reingard M. Nischik (Anansi) is a massive volume, assembled for Atwood's 60th birthday, and includes international appraisals of her work, as well as a bibliography and cartoons by Peggy herself!
· Habitat: Canadian Design Now, by Rachel Gotlieb, Kelly Rude, and Helen Delacretaz (Goose Lane) showcases the work of 10 Canadian designers of functional, fashionable, mass-produced everyday objects. It accompanies an exhibition that will tour Artcity, Calgary’s festival of visual arts, this year.
Poetry
· Shortlisted for the lucrative Griffin Prize for Concrete and Wild Carrot (Brick Books), Margaret Avison has a long-overdue book of collected poems in Always Now (Porcupine's Quill).
· "When [Ken] Norris is on, he's brilliantly on," says fellow poet rob mclennan. Very true. Given Wolsak & Wynn Publishers' track record in producing brilliant books of poetry, we can assume Norris is on for The Way Life Should Be.
· mclennan himself has been publishing, oh, about four trillion chapbooks and broadsides a year through above/ground press, so a welcome anthology for those of us who can't quite keep up is Groundswell: best of above/ground press 1993—2003 (Broken Jaw Press). Buy enough of them and maybe rob will be able to afford some capital letters.
· You've heard the CD on CBC – repeatedly – now read the book: Trains of Winnipeg by Clive Holden (DC Books).
· Dennis Lee, best known for his children's books but winner of the Governor General's Award for Civil Elegies, brings adults a lament for the "unward, the once-upon, us-/proud planet" in UN (House of Anansi).
Drama
Often overlooked, underrepresented in bookstores and languishing on back bottom shelves, drama can nonetheless be a joy to read – and it’s cheaper than a night at the theatre.
· Gaspereau Press, producer of some of the most handsome books in Canada, is releasing polymath Robert Bringhurst's Ursa Major: A Polyphonic Masque for Speakers and Dancers. Setting the Cree tradition of the famous constellation alongside the Greek and Roman traditions the rest of were are brought up with, composed in four languages (English, Latin, Greek and Cree) and illustrated by master woodcut artist Wesley Bates, this is a book for fetishists not to miss.
· If there's a genre lower on the commercial totem pole than drama, it might be theatre criticism. However, Performing National Identities: International Perspectives on Contemporary Canadian Theatre, edited by Dr. Sherrill Grace and Dr. Albert-Reiner Glaap (Talonbooks), looks like a winner – those of us who like this sort of thing will find it the sort of thing we like. It is a multifaceted reflection, by some of the world's most astute critics, on how Canada presents itself, and how it is perceived abroad, through its theatre. Ah, bliss!
Literary culture is alive and well across Canada. This is a more-or-less arbitrarily selected bunch of books. For more titles and information, visit the Web site of the Literary Press Group at www.lpg.ca. |
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