“...powerful, controlled and
disciplined.” —Dawn
(Pakistan)
“Both an affirmation of life and
a meditation on death, the collection embodies and enacts poetry as
prayer, as hymn, as benediction.
He has much in common with such poets as W.B. Yeats, Dylan Thomas,
Theodore Roethke and Irving Layton, embracing both the profane and the
spiritual, the sexual and the sacred. Like William Blake, he recognizes
that Everything that lives is Holy. Gambolling with the Divine
contains the doubts, thoughts and feelings of a poet at the height of
his powers as he approaches death's harvest of white bones.
As such, it's a love letter to the examined life, gracefully and
eloquently confirming that Faith trumps the wounded soul.”
― The Record
“If you want to share a
sensibility which is at once primitive and sophisticated, both intense
and subtle, a poetic craft which is taut and concentrated, then read
Flesh and Thorn.” ―Quarry
“Can Lit…has never articulated
and transcended the experience of the incomer so wonderfully …the voice
rings with a timbre known at once and altogether distinct; its range is
abnormally large; its tone of infinite variety.” ―The New Quarterly
“The cultural gift Crusz offers
us, as a kind of magnificent verbal embroidery of the plain cloth of
Canadian speech, continually surprises, delights, mystifies and
liberates those of us raised on the sound of what Northrop Fry has
called “the Canadian goose honk.” ―The Toronto South Asian Review
“His “Immigrant’s Song” is not
only an attempt to come to terms with his own past, it is also a heroic
statement of poetic independence.” ―Arun
Mukherjee, Currents
“Crusz, the most delicately
nuanced (of such voices) uses his to balance a history, a role, and a
difficult displacement… Like the West Indian poet, Derek Walcott [he]
will not indulge in simplified opposition, whether of language, culture
or colour.” ―Ariel
“Crusz’s language is subtle and
he makes his points obliquely. Moreover, his self-examination always
includes the social context of an immigrant’s struggle for a sense of
identity.” ―Books in
Canada
“The Sun-Man poems are major
artifacts of a new Canadian sensibility, important for the realities of
our national selfhood.”
―Nancy Lou Patterson,
University of Waterloo
“Here was a true poetry of the
displaced self, with sorrow beneath its bemused surface.
Opposites-elephant and ice- are reconciled by a delightful wit, and
ferocious though may be his interior heat, the light that the Sun –Man
sheds upon the world lingers in the mind with a lovely after-glow.”
―Zulfikar Ghose, University
of Texas
“To call Crusz an immigrant poet
is to summarize his intents too glibly. In both his books it is not the
obvious contrast between elephant and ice, Sri Lanka and Canada, that is
central but rather the manifold and specific ways in which a certain
sensibility tries to cope honestly with perennial themes in both
cultures.”
―Reshard Gool
“A most articulate poetry, with
a fascinating sense of where you come from and where to.” ―Robert
Creely
“His real genius lies not in the
message contained in the poetry, but in the pursuit of perfection in
poetic form. Very much a poet of sound and rhythm, Crusz writes with an
awareness that poetry is about language, about the power of imagination.
He is a very self –conscious poet, and that is precisely why his
reputation will outlast that of his contemporaries.”
―Chelva Kanaganayakam,
University of Toronto
“I can't think of a single
Canadian poet who, groin-tickled and happy, could achieve such delirium
on paper. The raw passion is there despite the control the poems
insist on.” —Irving
Layton
“Arguably the best living Sri
Lankan poet in English …, Crusz belongs to the older postcolonial
generation, including such writers as Walcott and Soyinka, prepared to
appropriate the colonial legacy of Shakespeare and English…” —World
Literature Today
“A moving and provocative
portrayal. The historical and imaginative work wonderfully together.
Through the many voices of history and the imagination, Crusz's dramatic
tale unfolds in all its lyrical power, bringing together the postmodern
and the postcolonial in exciting new ways.” —Linda
Hutcheon
“This is a concentration of
‘that fine madness’ which Michael Drayton thought ‘should possess a
poet’s brain.’ The fine madness that has gripped Crusz’s mind is none
other than his inseparable first love, his creator , whose strange music
we hear in this album of autobiographical poems.” —Aloysius
Pieris, S.J.
“His work reflects a unique
sense of history and consciousness, making him distinctive...he blends
both outsider and insider perspectives of Canada in a compelling
vision.” —JOY KOGAWA
“...[a] skilful poet...” —Dawn
(Pakistan)
“A fine craftsman, and a
wonderful weaver of images and rhythms,” —KWAME DAWES, World
Literature Today
“...skilled, crafted, layered,
full of contrasts” —Books in Canada
“A gifted Canadian poet.” —Toronto
Star
“Dabydeen's poetry has
Stravinsky rhythms.” —The Ottawa Citizen
“...a beautiful example of
women's epistemology in action that, without unduly essentialising men
and women, acknowledges and accepts women's ways of knowing, through
narrative, experience and intuition.” —The Muslim World Book
Review
“The women depart from tradition in setting aside the
rulings and interpretations of the Ulama, or scholars who codified Islam
in the early centuries. The rules concerning, among other things, the
behaviour and conduct of women, have remained the same, although there
are differences in practices and interpretation. The model of women
examining issues relevant to their practice on the basis of their
experience and perceptions, rather than the basis of their Islamic study
and knowledge of Arabic, provides a breath of life into contemporary
understanding of the inner dimension of Islam.
“By establishing and publicizing the dialogues, Bhimani has given
minority Muslim women the opportunity to speak for themselves and
articulate their innermost inspirations and thoughts. They may have
already been disregarded by the mainstream Islamic organizations
representing Islam who often seem like a monolithic structure eager to
embrace Western technology but conservative and rigid toward social
reform. It is unlikely that this book will be recognized or valued by
those structures.
“It is , however, vitally important that a forum such as this
Majlis is allowed 'to be,' because these lives and realities exist.
“Majalis al-Ilm is a fascinating and innovative examination
of the beauty and richness of the lives of Canadian women whom
one might see any day on the métro but whom many Montrealers might never
have heard speak.” — Montreal Gazette
CULTURAL STUDIES
ISBN: 9781894770064
Price: $25.95 (Paperback)
(Paperback):
“Nayar has the reader’s full
sympathy, for her story is achingly sad.” —Vancouver
Sun
“This story is not new... It is
a story of the brutal abuses of women by their supposedly loving
husbands. Except in the case of South Asian women like Rita Nayar, this
spousal abuse takes Wagnerian heights and ends tragically when the
insular community does not protect or at least offer shelter to the
abused women. The power and control exhibited by husbands are
unconscionable and inexcusable. My only consolation is the hope that the
second generation of South Asian women will have the courage to stand
against such abuses and enough outlets would exist for them to escape
from such tyranny.
It is a very difficult story to narrate in the first person. How
does one do it anyway? But, it must be told. For that, one must thank
Rita Nayar for her courage in baring her life story and her soul in the
process. The epilogue does point to the slow and steady way... Why do
these things happen? This is left for a later reflection by Rita Nayar
or some psycho-sociologists. This book must be a required reading for
all South Asian males, for we need to search our heart, mind and soul to
check if any iota of Shan is in us!” —Kalã
(Toronto)
"Engaging and detailed,
The Palm Leaf
Fan and Other Stories
shines a revealing light on a previously little-known community."
— Judy Fong Bates
"This
collection beautifully captures the lives of girls and women in the
Chinese neighbourhood of Calcutta, now Kolkata, in the fifties and
the sixties. The stories help us grasp the complex history of global
migrations of populations, the stigmatization and oppression of
minorities by modern states, and the challenges of
multiculturalism." —
Arun Mukherjee,
York University
On
the cover of Betty Warrington-Kearsley's first collection of poems, a
set of chopsticks lies demurely across the tines of a fork,
insinuating the East-West cultural mingling on the pages within. The
intimacy of the image is telling, as is its nod to flavour, for
there's nothing bland or bureaucratically multicultural about
Warrington-Kearsley's writing. In 2004, she won the Diana Brebner
Prize for poetry, awarded by Arc Poetry Magazine, with 'Onsen in Izu,'
a sensual, textured poem set in the thermal baths in Japan in which
figures slipped 'into the vapour veil of steaming baths/ stripped to
our glass biographies." — Anita Lahey, Ottawa Magazine
(October 2006)
"Full of verbal and visual felicities,
this is an astonishing first collection abounding with a gallery of
familial and fabular figures. A virtuoso debut!" —
Seymour Mayne
"Red Lacquered Chopsticks is a
collection that engages the mind and heart. These are poems of
sensuous words and sharp images that beg to be read and re-read.
This is beautifully crafted poetry ... an enriching experience for
the reader." —
David Halton
"These poems
cross time and cultures and bear witness to the diverse experiences
of those who now inhabit this Turtle Island called Canada. With
maturity and a vision that draws from a tradition of storytelling,
the poet writes vividly of a world that becomes ours in the reading."
—
Armand Garnet Ruffo
“'No Rosa, No District 6' is a
terrifically ferocious story about a young girl's sudden education in
the erotic lives of women” —The Globe and Mail
“Eye-opening, passionate... Maart observes the human costs of apartheid
and homophobia with a keen eye.” —The Globe and Mail
“Consistently compelling.” —NOW
“...a writer in our
midst with radical style and uncommon courage. The ability to engage the
reader passionately in her narrator's experiences... makes Maart a
writer to watch.” —The Ottawa Citizen
“...Maart writes
with self-assuredness. [A] competent and trustworthy writer...” —Books
in Canada
“Songs to a Moonstruck Lady is a treasure. In Barnett Zumoff’s
careful choices and supple translations voices long forgotten come
startlingly alive once again, surprising and touching us. An
invaluable collection.”
— Jeremy Dauber, Columbia University
“Dr. Zumoff’s translation of love poetry in Yiddish has opened the
door to humanism in Yiddish– especially because the poems are
beautifully chosen and well translated.”
— Dr. (Rabbi) Hertzberg, New York University
"This is beautifully written. It has sharp details
that make the settings come alive,
and which help to reveal the characters of the
principals."
—
Guy Vanderhaeghe
"Anand Mahadevan engages all the
reader's senses with writing that is vivid and exotic, very
often erotic, and touched throughout with gentle humour. He
writes with such compassion that while reading this book you
will undoubtedly nod in recognition of your own family and loves
and sometimes foolish self." — Gail Anderson-Dargatz,
A Recipe for Bees
"A wonderfully accomplished debut,
and a tender story about childhood and family that is also evocative
of a whole era."
— MG Vassanji
“It is exciting to see works
that take risks by experimenting with form... This collection pushes
against assumptions about Chinese Canadian literature and shows support
for emerging writers. In this way, Strike the Wok argues the
importance of showcasing contemporary fiction in order to reflect the
changing Chinese Canadian literary community.” —Ricepaper
From The
Toronto Star:
The Chinese restaurant.
The laundry. Computer nerds and dragon ladies. Iconic images and
stereotypes.
In "Snaps — A Satire" by
Iris Li, a frustrated Chinese-Canadian writer tells her publisher: "What
you want from me are caricatures ... The good obedient daughter who
fights to be her own person but never succeeds. The trampy whore of a
cousin who rebels against her upright upbringing and subsequently got
into a car crash because she drove while hitching up her skirt to make
it shorter, lost control of the wheel, crashed into a parked car, which
burst into a crescendo of flame and rendered her ugly and deformed, thus
serving as a profound lesson to the good, obedient daughter never to
stray from her parents' teachings."
To which the publisher replies: "Brilliant. Make that into a story."
The editors of Strike The Wok, a collection of 29 short stories,
have avoided "recognized Chinese stereotypes" with such success that the
anthology lacks any obvious unifying theme, other than the ethnicity of
the writers. This is progress of a sort, although it leaves the reader
wondering whether there is such a thing as "Chinese Canadian fiction"
that differs from, say, "Canadian fiction."
In the end, the stories succeed or fail on their literary merits, not
their Chinese-ness.
Among the successes:
Lien
Chao's "Neighbours" describes a chance encounter between a woman
originally from Beijing and an older white couple at a Canada Day
celebration at Eglinton Square. Chao captures the combination of social
tension and personal warmth so typical of such meetings, and her
restrained writing style creates space for the reader to engage the
characters.
Andy
Quan's "Ants" makes no overt references to anything Asian but deals with
the relationship between two gay men, Jerry and Mick. Again, the quality
of the writing sets this story apart, as well as its sweet romantic tone
— it seems odd that gay writers are more willing to write warmly about
love than straight writers, who seem obsessed with gender conflict.
Finally,
Fred Wah's poetic "I Hardly Ever Go Into King's Family Restaurant"
touches on the cultural themes of separateness and longing without
sentimentality. He ends with his conflicted narrator eating in a
restaurant on a cold January night in Canada while his thoughts drift to
"a smoky star-filled night in China," where men climb in caves to
collect nests for bird's nest soup, "the frightened cries of the
swallows themselves as piercing as a foreign language."
