The publication of Avant Desire: A Nicole Brossard Reader is a happy occasion to be sure, but it does beg some questions. Notably: “What took so long?” Brossard’s career spans five decades, after all, and though compilations of her work have appeared, there hasn’t been a collection with the ambition demonstrated by Avant Desire before now.
Why a collection of selected poems now? My first question to Carmine Starnino about his new book Dirty Words is perhaps a little unfair. But I’m curious as to what has motivated a retrospective of five collections at this point in his career. A collection of selected poems always has the feel of an interval. A pause, a reflection. A summary, even.
Sam’s disappearance is the still point around which Sophie Bienvenu’s affecting short novel unspools, with Mathieu’s life unwinding in all its love and heartbreak from page to page.
The first novel by Ioana Georgescu to be translated into English, Daughter of Here spans decades and continents with a graceful ease. Anchored in time by the events of Tahrir Square in 2011, the narration moves fluidly through time, while being propelled toward this revolutionary moment
In the past decade, climate fiction has become a frighteningly relevant literary genre, with an increasing number of authors exploring the potentially apocalyptic consequences of climate change. In Fauna, first-time author Christiane Vadnais offers us ten interwoven tales about a world ravaged by pollution and floods, populated by strange nocturnal creatures and metamorphic parasites.
In 2007, Milton Ontario is a new arrival to Montreal. Exposed to Cohen’s songs in his high school English class in rural Saskatchewan, he became an instant fan and, lamentably, a poet. A really bad one, as humorously evidenced by the snippets of blank verse throughout the book. After years of dodging a career in the oil patch, Milton has come to his hero’s hometown to enlist in the Mile End bohemia.
Towners & Other Stories, Quirion’s debut collection, features a novella and eight short stories, all of which largely concentrate on masculinist aspects of Eastern Townships culture.
We’ve all found ourselves daydreaming of a better life, fantasizing about a time and place where our deepest desires have become reality. For some, the conditions of existence may call for a little more fantasizing than for others. This can certainly be said for the central character in Jean-Christophe Réhel’s new novel in English translation, Tatouine.
Kama La Mackerel’s debut poetry collection, ZOM-FAM, is kaleidoscopic – literally, it is beautiful in its form and scope. As a way of looking, the kaleidoscope lets us view and appreciate La Mackerel’s moving, imaginative poetry through multiple frameworks.
Eva Crocker’s debut novel, which was longlisted for the Giller Prize, originated as a script for a playwriting class. All I Ask is a carefully crafted, observant novel, whose dialogue and scene composition retain an intimacy and immediacy that hint at its theatrical origins.
