|
|
|
|
 













|
|
|
 |
|
Against an
African Sky and Other Stories |
|
Farida Karodia |
|
With the end of apartheid, a new constitution, and a new hope
for the future of the country, ordinary South Africans pick up
the threads of their ordinary day-to-day lives. In these stories
Karodia explores lives and relationships in the new South Africa
from the perspective of Indian, African, and European
characters. |
“…riveting…palpable and heart
wrenching…”
—The Globe and
Mail
“Karodia has taken the writer’s role to new heights in South Africa.”
—South African Review of Books |
| |
|
|
 |
Fiction
ISBN: 9780920661628
Price: $13.95 |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
Alphabet Zen |
|
Bing He |
| Rooted in
Zen, Taoism and traditional Chinese poetry, influenced by modern
Western movements such as Surrealism and Expressionism, this
poetry collection reflects the author's transfigurations and
redemptions of life's drabness with imagination, harmonizing
oriental wisdom with metaphysical sensibilities. |
| |
|
|
|
Poetry
ISBN: 9781894770231
Price: $16.95 |
|
|
|
| |
|
Another Way
to Dance
Contemporary Asian Poetry from
Canada and the United States |
|
ed. Cyril Dabydeen |
| This
anthology contains some of the most active and dynamic voices of
contemporary poetry written by Americans and Canadians of Asian
background. The poetry has a wide-ranging appeal reflecting
place and time. Bold clear imagery and motifs depict a changing
North American landscape of cultural and spiritual
heterogeneity. |
| Included
are Canadians Joy Kogawa,
Rienzi Crusz, Suniti
Namjoshi, and Himani Bannerji, and Americans Arthur Sze, Mei-mei
Berssenbrugge, David Mura, Cathy Song. |
| |
|
|
ISBN: 9780920661598
Price: $19.95 |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
Arrival of
the Snake-Woman |
|
Olive Senior |
| The Toronto author’s Jamaican
birthplace provides the setting for these powerful and poignant
stories that span a period of roughly 150 years, from the
closing days of slavery in 1838 to the 1980s. The tensions
wrought by rapid change and conflicting loyalties are at the
heart of these stories, most beautifully evoked in the novella
“Arrival of the Snake-Woman”. Here a young boy narrates the
seminal event of his childhood in the late nineteenth century:
the coming of a lonely Indian indentured woman into a mountain
village. Senior’s stories are leavened with wit and humour and
the intricate play with language and her characters emerge as
triumphant examples of the human spirit unravelling the complex
weave of race, class, and cultural and ethnic identity. |
"Arrival of the Snake-Woman has
consolidated (Olive Senior’s) reputation as one of the most
accomplished writers of short fiction and as one of the
Caribbean’s finest creative minds."
— Caribbean Week |
| |
|
|
Fiction
ISBN: 9781894770538
Price: $20.95 |
|
|
|
| |
|
 |
|
Behind the Face of Winter |
|
H Nigel Thomas |
| A
coming-of-age novel set in a Montreal in which immigrant youth
totter on the edge of self-destruction and oblivion, in the face
of brutal and racist police, an insensitive education system,
and few prospects for the future. Thomas’s language is spare,
and his crackling dialogue and use of patois can compare with
the best in Caribbean literature. |
|
“. . . a hard story,
sometimes despairingly bleak, but it is also undeniably
beautiful . . . worth reading—and rereading
. . .”
—Quill & Quire |
| |
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN: 9780920661956 |
|
Price: $16.95 |
|
|
| |
| |
|
Belonging and Banishment
Being Muslim in Canada
|
| ed.
Natasha Bakht |
| A
variety of Canadian voices come together here to
explore some of the vital issues facing Muslims in
Canada. Who, indeed, is a Canadian Muslim? This is
only one of the fundamental questions addressed in
this volume. The authors are from diverse ethnic
backgrounds, hail from coast to coast, and profess
varying degrees of practice and belief. In their
thoughtful contributions, they explore matters of
faith, identity, sectarianism, human rights, and
women’s rights. Specifically, the essays collected
here question the dubious role of the government of
Canada—under pressure from the “war on terror”—and
its agencies regarding the human rights of young
Muslims; explain the relationship between scientific
research and the Muslim traditions of knowledge and
intellectual pursuit; give examples of tolerant
Muslim upbringing and reinforcement of positive
teenage identities; point out the duplicitous
practices of certain Canadian media in portraying
Muslims; look at the issues of women voting or
participating in sports while veiled, as well as the
implications of Shariah law as a means of
arbitration. |
|
The contributors to this important and timely
volume include:
Anar Ali,
Arif Babul,
Anver Emon,
Karim H Karim,
Ausma Khan,
Rukhsana Khan,
Sheema Khan,
Amin Malak,
Syed Mohamed Mehdi,
Haroon Siddiqui |
| |
|
 |
|
CRITICISM |
|
ISBN: 9781894770484 |
|
Price: $25.95 |
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
| Bleeding
Light |
| Sheniz Janmohamed |
| Bleeding Light is a collection of poems in ghazal form
that traces the steps of a woman’s journey through night. She
knows that in order to witness dawn, she has to travel through
dusk first. Throughout her journey, she is caught between West
and East, religion and heresy, love and anti-love, darkness and
the knowledge of light. Each couplet is an independent thought
and reflection, a pearl strung into a necklace. Bleeding
Light is fraught with opposing, stark and often violent
imagery heavily influenced by Sufi philosophy.
"her eloquent and appealing ghazals dazzle one with
their precision, sudden turns and brilliant use of the cultural
memory of language and imagery."
- Kuldip Gill
|
|
|
|
Poetry/Ghazals
Paperback
ISBN: 9781894770637
Price: $17.95
Epub ISBN: 9781927494141 Price: $9.99 |
|
|
| |
|
|
Beyond Silence
Chinese Canadian Literature in English |
|
Lien Chao |
|
From
unappreciated railway workers facing institutional
racism and neglect in the last century to national
cultural figures of the present, the Chinese, like
other coloured peoples of Canada, have made great
inroads into the mainstream, which in turn has
adjusted its self-image to accommodate diversity. |
|
“…an important
milestone in the evolution of Canadian literary
studies” —Arun Mukherjee, York
University |
| |
|
|
| CRITICISM |
| ISBN:
9780920661697 |
| Price: $21.95 |
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Blues from
the Malabar Coast |
|
Nalini Warriar |
|
These twelve
delightful linked stories begin in a small village
on India’s Malabar coast. The Variyars are a
traditional matriarchal family, their children are
numerous and spoilt, and life revolves around the
temple. The family and its fortunes are described
through the perceptions of its various members,
particularly the younger ones. “Blues from the
Malabar Coast” describes the life of the family,
dominated from dawn till dusk by the old grandmother
in the kitchen . . . In “Greener Pastures” a young
couple arrive in Quebec City, whose winters Ven
adores and where Seema recalls the life of her
family. In “Going Back” Seema returns for the
cremation of her father. |
|
“Beautiful and gripping stories written with a
seasoned maturity.”
—Austin Clarke |
| |
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9780920661994 |
|
Price: $18.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
 |
|
Canada Geese
and Apple Chatney |
|
Sasenarine Persaud |
|
In this
award-winning collection of stories, Persaud
presents us once more with his unique vision of
lives, both North American and Caribbean. Here are
voices probing at differences which are and aren't:
all threaded together by the ancestral India of the
protagonists' imagination, the Caribbean of their
childhood, the Toronto or New York of their recent
years, presented in a style inspired by an ancient
tradition in which storytellers move easily in and
out of stories and time and history. |
|
“Persaud’s breathtaking narrative demonstrates its
strong affinity with the work of Austin Clark. Here,
almost inscrutable demotic slang, once penetrated,
reinforces Persaud’s social commentary and nimbly
pits self-ironizing postmodernism against the
timeless values of narrative.”
—The Globe and
Mail |
| |
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9780920661727 |
|
Price: $15.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Cape Town
Coolie |
|
Réshard Gool |
|
There is no morality
left but that of the tiger: brute force. It is 1948.
The Afrikaaner Nationalists are poised to introduce
the racist policy of apartheid into South Africa.
Their plans include the conversion of District Six
in Cape Town into an exclusively white residential
district, and the removal of its current residents.
As profiteers and politicians converge upon this
slum area, its threatened residents valiantly put up
a fight. Henry Naidoo is drawn into the fight.
Naidoo, a highly principled yet gentle Indian
lawyer, realizes that the struggle against apartheid
is no ordinary fight for justice. It calls for a
brutality he is not equipped with. |
|
|
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9780920661093 |
|
Price: $12.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Caribbean
Blues & Love's Genealogy |
|
Dannabang Kuwabong |
|
In
this new collection of poetry, Kuwabong shows a
maturity of voice and a larger poetic vision to
celebrate love—love for the people of the Caribbean
and love between lovers.
In
the first part of this collection the love that is
celebrated emerges from a deep sense of historical
reconnection with the poet’s African ancestors who
were taken captive and sent to the Caribbean. But
the focus is not on the brutality of their
enslavement, though that is the guiding principle
that informs the poetic voice. The poems perform a
retrospective search for the roots that his African
ancestors planted in the new world without
romanticizing their struggles, defeats, and
victories. Thus they recreate the continental
African as a seeker of a poetic understanding of the
African Diaspora in the Caribbean.
In
the second part, Kuwabong takes the reader through a
Prufrockian maze of relationships complicated by
expectations and disappointments. The city of
Hamilton, Ontario especially provides the social and
physical landscapes that initiate the personae’s
responses to love made tricky by the extreme
challenges of the mundane. Though the poems silently
scream with pain and disappointment, these moods are
calmed by epiphanies of extreme tenderness that bind
the relationships. |
|
". . . these poems are
rhythmical, full of life, meant to be read aloud."
—Rabble.ca |
| |
|
|
|
POETRY |
|
ISBN:
9781894770507 |
|
Price: $16.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
The Chinese
Knot and Other Stories |
|
Lien Chao |
In this new collection,
award-winning author Lien Chao weaves together these
emotionally charged short stories focusing on
Chinese immigrants in Toronto’s multiracial
neighbourhoods.
In Chinatown and mixed neighbourhoods, in condos and
tenements, in public parks and in college, the
protagonists of these stories find love, face
loneliness, confront generational crises, and
overcome racial stereotypes as they evolve and grow
in this exciting, ever-changing multicultural
society. |
"The Chinese
Knot offers the reader a realistic view of the
Chinese immigrant, making it a great resource as
either a study guide or a way to find a sympathetic
voice for anyone who has ever moved their entire
life to new surroundings. Heartfelt and
provocative, it opens the way for discussions on
multicultural issues and racial stereotypes."
—carp(e) libris |
| |
|
|
|
FICTION |
Paperback ISBN: 9781894770439
Price: $18.95
Epub ISBN: 9781894770804
Price:
$9.99 |
| |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
Closed
Entrances
Canadian Culture and Imperialism |
|
Arnold Harrichand Itwaru
and
Natasha Ksonzek |
|
A tough,
hard-hitting look at Canadian cultural institutions
that places them in the continuous tradition of the
Western imperialistic enterprise that dominated the
third world and now dominates immigrant culture in
the West. |
|
“Arnold Itwaru invites us to re-examine our
literary-critical proprieties and join him in a
quest to create a discourse that will open up these
avenues of inquiry. Canadian literature deserves to
be taken this seriously.” —Books
in Canada |
| |
|
|
|
CRITICISM |
|
ISBN:
9780920661253 |
| Out of Print |
|
|
| |
| |
|
Configurations of Exile
South Asian Writers and their World |
|
Chelva Kanaganayakam |
|
Interviews
with some of the major South Asian writers from
across the globe, including Vikram Seth, Tariq Ali,
David Dabydeen, Shashi Tharoor, Bapsi Sidhwa. |
|
|
|
|
|
INTERVIEWS |
|
ISBN:
9780920661475 |
|
Price: $16.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Consensual
Genocide |
|
Leah Lakshmi
Piepzna-Samarasinha |
|
This
long-awaited first collection of poetry by queer Sri
Lankan writer and spoken-word artist Leah Lakshmi
Piepzna-Samarasinha is full of the stories we’ve
been waiting for. Tracing bloodlines from Sri
Lanka’s civil wars to Brooklyn and Toronto streets,
these fierce poems are full of heart and guts,
telling raw truths about brown girl border crossings
before and after 9/11, surviving abuse, mixed-race
journeys and high femme rebellions. Consensual
Genocide celebrates our survival and marks our rebel
memories into history. |
|
“Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha's words leap off
the page–urgent, sumptuous writing that demands, and
deserves, a wide audience. I'm listening.”
— Anna Camilleri, author of I Am a Red Dress,
editor Red Light and Brazen Femmes |
|
|
|
|
|
POETRY |
|
ISBN:
9781894770293 |
|
Price: $16.95
|
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
 |
|
Dancing in
the Dust |
|
Kasigo Lesego Molope |
|
It is the turbulent
1980s in apartheid South Africa, when even the
ordinary life is full of danger and uncertainty.
What will tomorrow bring? Tihelo, a
thirteen-year-old girl, lives with her older sister
Keitumetse and their mother Kgomotso. Kgomotso works
as a maid for a white household in the city and has
to depend on the neighbours to keep an eye on the
girls; one day she does not come home.
Dancing in the Dust
is a moving story of growing up in a fearful,
oppressive society, where the only comfort for the
young is dream and romance, and the only free option
that of rebellion. |
|
“. . . cinematic
in clarity . . . Molope makes her reader see and
understand
. . . feel the enormity of apartheid’s atrocity.”
—The Globe and Mail |
|
|
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9781894770019 |
|
Price: $18.95
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
Dark Antonyms
and Paradise
The Poetry of Rienzi Crusz |
|
Chelva Kanaganayakam |
The poetry and
prose of Rienzi Crusz are
about many things—exile, identity, family, religion,
politics, and racism—and this work is an attempt to
demonstrate that the various facets are a result of
a holistic vision that transcends narrow labels.
Crusz is best known in Canada as a diasporic writer,
committed to exploring the complexities of living
between and among two worlds. This study goes beyond
binary formulations to argue that while such markers
are necessary, a full understanding of the poet's
achievement requires that personal history, the
political context of migration, poetic influences,
and readership in Canada be taken into account. A
carefully researched and definitive study, Dark
Antonyms and Paradise offers an insightful
reading of the work of a major Sri Lankan Canadian
poet.
“An intelligent plea for a closer, less
schematized look at the work of a poet whose very
essence, Kanaganayakam argues, is in fluidity,
change, and lyrical becoming.”
--Letters
in Canada |
| |
|
|
|
POETRY |
|
ISBN:
9780920661680 |
Price: $15.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Divine
Elemental |
|
Raywat Deonandan |
|
Raised abroad in the
west, Kalya returns to her ancestral village in
India, and into her life arrives an odd Greek
Canadian entomologist come to study the quixotic fig
wasp, native to the village's peculiar ecosystem.
His name is Iskandar Diamandi and he is obsessed
with the Indian march of Alexander the Great.
In the life histories of both Alexander and the
wasp, Iskandar sees hidden universal truths and his
own roadmap to Destiny.
This tale of romance
between unlikely lovers explores the divides between
science and religion, East and West, male and
female, ancient and modern, and the extent to which
perception defines reality. |
| |
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9781894770088 |
|
Price: $18.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
Domains of Fear and Desire
Urdu
Stories |
|
Muhammad Umar Memon |
|
Urdu stories
by some of the best and most renowned writers of the
language, brought to the English reader in accurate
modern translations. |
|
“Superb... the 21 stories are both exotic and
accessible.”
—The Globe and Mail |
|
|
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9780920661215 |
|
Price: $15.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Downfall by
Degrees |
|
Abdullah Hussein |
|
Downfall by
Degrees takes the reader on a journey that
explores the nature of alienation and exile. The
drawing rooms of Lahore's high society, the ghettos
of Britain, an estate in the Pakistani countryside,
the bedroom of a beautiful woman—these are the
settings for these stories of love and identity,
longing and becoming, exile and return—stories that
probe with masterful precision and exquisite balance
the condition of the modern man at odds against
himself.
|
| |
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9780920661024 |
|
Price: $11.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Drums of My
Flesh |
|
Cyril Dabydeen |
|
In a central
park in Ottawa's Sandy Hill, Gabe, an immigrant from
Guyana (South America), explores the past in the
company of his young Canadian-born daughter. But
this novel goes beyond the traditional innocence to
reality plot, as it also embraces a quest for
spiritual beingness in a compelling setting fraught
with irony. Grounds shift as characters come fully
to life; tropical and temperate zones merge; the
past and present form intermittent shadows. Gabe's
story of growing up in an Indian family struggling
to live traditionally in faraway Guyana, and
Christian, Hindu and Muslim worlds come together, as
the plot unravels, and we continually move back and
forth faced with new realities, new awakenings. |
|
".
. . a beautifully rendered, intellectually
challenging, and deeply satisfying addition to
Dabydeen’s oeuvre."
—
Dr
Anne-Marie Lee-Loy,
Ryerson University |
|
Winner of the 2006
GUYANA Prize - the Best book of fiction |
|
|
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9781894770255 |
|
Price: $18.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Dying in a
Strange Country |
|
Tahira Naqvi |
|
The stories in
Pakistan-born Tahira Naqvi’s second collection have
a life in the South Asian diaspora of North America.
Told in multiple voices—aging aunts, mothers,
cousins, the environment of the motherland
itself—they all manage still to converge upon the
world of the immigrant in meaningful ways. |
|
“. . . a poignant
and moving commentary on what it means to be an
immigrant in the US.”
—Herizons
“. . . issues of gender, generations and culture
come together to give the narrative a resonant depth
and offer more than one layer of meaning.”
—World
Literature Today |
| |
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9780920661864 |
|
Price: $15.95
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
 |
|
The Enemy
Within |
|
Nalini Warriar |
Dreaming of
college in the tropical paradise of Kerala, India,
seventeen-year-old Sita is married off by her
parents to an Indian engineer in Quebec City.
“La Noire” in the cold, northern city, Sita learns
to love it and begins to change in her ways, her
transformation gaining momentum with the death of
her daughter Maya. In spite of a cold marriage to an
insensitive, dominating man, leaving whom is not an
option, she carves out a life and career for
herself. But politics and intrigue threaten to
suffocate her... |
|
"Warriar
has created here a life story so engrossing and
touching, so rich in evocative detail, and so
telling in its condemnation of Quebec’s solipsism
that she again deserves our commendation."
— Montreal
Review of Books |
| |
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9781894770248 |
|
Price: $18.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Enough to be
Mortal Now |
|
Rienzi Crusz |
In his most recent volume
of poetry, Rienzi Crusz’s preoccupations have not
substantially changed, but his perspectives have. He
is deeply conscious of time and place, the events of
the past and the concerns of the future. But like
many lyrical poets, he is also concerned with
broader existential concerns, with love and hope,
with tragedy and despair. He continues to look at
nature in its multiple forms for inspiration and
tranquility.
The journey continues. Rienzi Crusz “must wizard a
track through his own screaming weed.” As he
meditates on the edge of silence, he goes feistily
through the scowl of age, distance and time,
lovingly through the many idioms of the sun, and
revels in the poetic spaces with the ‘singing
metaphor,’ the dance of words. Crusz also sings of
his zest for life—“Hell, No !” He will “not go
gentle into that dark night”. As always, he holds to
the tried recipes of his song: love and laughter,
and memories that stay like honey in the mouth. |
"At
84, the Waterloo poet knows a thing or two about
mortality. His thoughts, musings and speculations,
not to mention certainties and anxieties, are given
eloquent expression in this deep, rich, moving
meditative collection of poems that celebrate life
as it reflects on death."
— Robert Reid, The Record,
December 2, 2009 |
| |
|
|
|
POETRY |
|
ISBN:
9781894770606 |
|
Price: $17.95
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
| |
|
Flight Across
the Mekong |
|
Jennifer Cook |
|
A thrilling
adventure story about a Canadian family in
Vientiane, Laos when the communists takeover in
1975. With their American friend Nat gone, two
teenagers, Anna and Harry Porter, think they are in
for a long, dull summer. But before they know it
they are involved in a breathtaking and dangerous
mission to save a Lao family and help them escape
across the Mekong River to Thailand and freedom. |
| |
|
|
|
YA FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9780920661796 |
|
Price: $10.95
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
Floating the Borders
New
Contexts in Canadian Criticism |
|
ed. Nurjehan Aziz |
|
This
collection of ground-breaking essays looks at some
of the leading new trends and writers who have
transformed the face of Canadian literature in the
last thirty years. The ten essays and fifteen book
reviews consider in detail the works of Rohinton
Mistry, Dionne Brand, Austin Clarke, MG Vassanji,
Shyam Selvadurai, Josef Skvorecki, and many others. |
"The book reviews
are remarkable for their fairness and their honesty,
a reminder of the valuable critical spirit
cultivated at TSAR."
— Canadian Literature |
|
|
|
|
|
CRITICISM |
|
ISBN:
9780920661802 |
Price: $24.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
The Fourth
Canvas |
|
Rana Bose |
|
In the early 1970s a
reclusive artist and philosopher disappears in Paris
after completing a fantastic series of canvases that
trace the rise and fall of empires. Eventually his
bloated body is dragged from the Seine. The
knowledge and insight die with him. Years later,
Claude Chiragi, a graduate student in Montreal
receives a mysterious painting and senses the
relevance of the theory embedded in the artwork. His
curiosity is instantly aroused, and he launches a
global search for clues that will help him
understand the message and unravel the mystery of
the artist’s fate. Embedded in the paintings are
tell-tale historical clues, mysteriously coded, that
predict imperial entropy in the future—from economic
collapse and cultural decadence to a coup d’etat
against civil society. Kidnappings, killings,
undercover conspiracy and a trek into ancestral
roots, lend to this novel its quality of
intellectual mystery and gripping suspense. |
The Fourth
Canvas is an intellectual thriller, an
ambitious novel
of ideas
full of juicy characters. Rana Bose tackles the
enigma
at the
heart of all great thinkers and doers.
—
marianne
ackerman
Using six degrees of separation and a mysterious
artist's fourth canvas,
author Rana Bose builds one great story!
— Desi Life
With complex characters, a wide-spanning time
period, and historical fact mixed with brilliant
fiction, The
Fourth Canvas
will leave you asking,
“When is the next Bose book ready?”
— carp(e) libris
|
| |
|
|
|
FICTION |
ISBN:
9781894770477
Price: $20.95 |
|
|
| |
| |
|
| |
Gabardine
& Other Poems |
|
Shyamal Bagchee |
|
Written at
locations as widely disparate as eastern India,
northern Canada, western Bolivia, southern Ireland,
and even the taxiway at Boston's Logan airport,
these poems explore the broad reach of the English
erotic idiom. These are poems about love—sometimes
licit though often not—lust, and the language of
desire. Not primarily concerned with displacement or
diasporic experience, they nevertheless reveal a
deracinate and dark-limbed Krishna sort of
fellow—reminiscent of classical Sanskrit erotic
poetry—flitting in and out of these pages. |
|
"An unusual and sophisticated collection."
— Dawn
|
| |
|
|
|
POETRY |
|
ISBN:
9781894770149 |
|
Price: $16.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Gambolling
with the Divine |
|
Rienzi Crusz |
|
In his tenth
collection of poetry, Rienzi Crusz attempts to track
and document his faltering human journey towards God
and the Divine. Reflecting a devotional tradition
professionally Catholic as well as South Asian
(bhakti), these poems are witness to a personal love
of God and the frailty of the human loves.
Gambolling with the Divine is the Augustinian
confessions retold with brilliantly vivid Sri Lankan
and Canadian variations. |
|
“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 |
| |
|
|
|
POETRY |
|
ISBN:
9781894770118 |
|
Price: $16.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
The General
is Up |
|
Peter Nazareth |
|
Damibia is a fictitious
land-locked country in East Africa, in which a
demented army general takes power and begins a
brutal rule of surrealistic dimensions. The
General is Up is a comic fictional look at the
essentially tragic story of the rise and fall of an
African dictator, and the horrendous wrecking of a
beautiful productive country in which the formerly
idealistic landscape lies scattered with corpses and
burnt villages. |
| |
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9780920661192 |
| Out of Stock |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
The Geography
of Voice |
|
Diane McGifford |
|
A comprehensive
anthology of the best of the poetry, fiction, and
drama by those writers who trace their ancestry to
the Indian subcontinent. The writers included in
these pages originate from India, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka, as well as East and South
Africa and the Caribbean. What they have in common
besides their ancestry is that they reside in and
create their works in Canada.
This anthology is a
landmark in Canadian literature, being the first
detailed compilation of the literature of the recent
wave of South Asian immigrants to Canada. As such it
should supplement the well-established but outdated
anthologies of CanLit. |
| |
|
|
|
ANTHOLOGY |
|
ISBN:
9780920661277 |
| Out of Print |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Grandma's
Heart |
|
Shenaaz Nanji
illustrated by
Rossitza Skortcheva Penney |
|
This story tells of a young Asian girl's
relationship with Nani-Ma, her grandmother. Shaira,
like many young children, is unsure of sharing her
grandmother's love and attention with others in her
family. While Nani-Ma is away visiting another
grandchild, Shaira begins to understand that she can
love more than one person. |
| |
|
|
|
CHILDREN'S |
|
ISBN:
9780920661352 |
|
Price: $4.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
| |
|
Hemisphere of
Love |
|
Cyril Dabydeen |
|
Hemisphere of Love
reflects the author’s passion and honesty as he
delves into the mystery of love and strives to bring
order to human experience. In this collection a
range of scenes and situations is carefully carved
in words and couched in metaphor. Geographical and
spiritual boundaries, shifting tonalities and moods
carry the reader into Dabydeen’s complex universe.
Janus-faced, he continually looks forward and
backward. |
|
“...skilled,
crafted, layered, full of contrasts”
—Books in Canada
“A gifted Canadian poet.”
—Toronto Star
“Dabydeen's poetry has Stravinsky rhythms.”
—The Ottawa Citizen |
| |
|
|
|
POETRY |
|
ISBN:
9781894770125 |
| Out of Print |
|
|
| |
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
Her Mother's
Ashes 3 |
|
ed. Nurjehan Aziz |
Following the greatly
acclaimed first two volumes in this series, this
collection brings together more first-rate stories
by South Asian women that—whether set in their home
countries or those of their adoption—explore with
profound and sensitive insight the inner tenor of
women’s lives caught between places, cultures, and
generations.
Precisely crafted and sensitively told, each of
these twenty stories offers us a wonderful glimpse
into the complex and manifold world of the South
Asian women of North America.
Including stories by Pallavi Sharma Dixit,
Gitanjali Kotanand, Herpreet Singh,
Bapsi Sidhwa, Lila S Nagarajan, Priscila Uppal,
Tasleem, Thawar, Padma Viswanathan, Sharmila
Mukherjee, Tahira Naqvi, Kalyani Pandya, Mariam
Pirbhai, Sarmista Das, Maria Chaudhuri, Prema
Srinivasan, Mahtab Narsimhan, Sweta Srivastava
Vikram, Ranja Rajah, Janice Goveas, Bageshree Vaze,
Shefali Shah Choksi, Billie Vasdev, Nalini Warriar,
Wasela Hiyate, and others! |
| |
|
|
|
ANTHOLOGY |
|
ISBN:
9780920661545 |
|
Price: $24.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
History and Imagination
Tamil
Culture in the Global Context |
|
R Cheran, Darshan Ambalavanar,
Chelva Kanaganayakam |
This collection of
essays covers a broad range of topics concerning
Tamil culture all over the world. Tamils,
originating in South India and Sri Lanka, constitute
a large part of the diasporic South Asians in
Canada, as well as the United States, Australia, and
Europe. This book is therefore of special relevance
to the concerns of multiculturalism and
globalization.
Including essays by Layne Little, Archana
Venkatesan, Susan Schomburg, Anand Pandian, E
Annamalai, V Geetha, Ravi Vaitheespara, Chelva
Kanaganayakam, Joseph A Chandrakanthan, and R Cheran |
| |
|
|
|
CULTURAL
STUDIES |
|
ISBN:
9781894770361 |
|
Price: $28.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Home and Back |
|
Arnold Harrichand Itwaru |
|
Itwaru brings us a
touching lyrical meditation on growth and loss, the
departure from home and life lived between
remembering and forgetting. After residing uneasily
in Canada for over twenty years, Deo returns to a
Guyana to find a disconcerting homelessness where
every totem of his memory has been brutally removed. |
“Itwaru
often reads like a Gordimer, Soyinka or Achebe in
his dedicated pursuit of the truth . . . and mincing
not a single word, he leaves us wordless . . .”
—Sunday Observer (India)
“. . . powerful, involving reading . . .” —Books
in Canada |
|
|
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9780920661949 |
|
Price: $16.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
| |
|
In a Boston
Night |
|
Sasenarine Persaud |
From the very first
piece in this collection, the title poem “In a
Boston Night,” Sasenarine Persaud signals a return
to the passionate and sensuous that informed much of
his earlier work. Persaud, the poet as craftsman, is
ever present in this collection, using a complex
series of personas and “voices” moving back and
forth in time and place. Boston, the focal point of
this collection, is like a needle hole through which
the poet deftly threads his reflections about
places, events, and histories: a conflict between
Anglo- and Franco-Canadians at a Brookline art
exhibition; Georgetown and Mumbai; Tampa and
Toronto; the “Boston Tea Party” as a symbol of
resistance to American English, subtly underlined by
the description of a Walcott reading in an
overflowing university hall. This is a fine,
multilayered collection of poems by an important and
accomplished contemporary poet.
Review of In a Boston Night
in News India Times |
| |
|
|
|
POETRY |
|
ISBN:
9781894770491 |
|
Price: $16.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
In the Shadow
of Kirinyaga |
|
Sophia Mustafa |
|
Mussavir, a young Asian
doctor in Kenya, has joined a volunteer medical
corps to serve in Ethiopia, defending itself from
Mussolini’s Italian army. But before he leaves, his
family, the Bashirs, desire to get him engaged to
Shaira, a thirteen-year-old cousin. Mussavir does
not have much choice, but when the families meet, he
falls in love with the intelligent and ambitious
girl. The engagement takes place, Mussavir sets off
for the Ethiopian front, and an unexpected fate
unfolds for the young couple. This beautiful novel
reveals a rare insight into life in early colonial
Kenya, from the perspective of an Asian Muslim
family. The poignant story of Mussavir and Shaira,
their innocence caught in the web of larger events,
is sure to capture the heart. |
|
". . . fills a
critical gap about a vanished world."
— Multicultural
Review |
| |
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9781894770033 |
|
Price: $18.95 |
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
Indenture and Abolition
Sacrifice and Survival on the Guyanese Sugar
Plantations
|
|
Basdeo Mangru |
|
This
thoroughly-researched and well-documented book looks
at several of the key aspects of the phenomenon of
Indian indentured labour in the West Indies, from
beginning to end—from the methods of recruitment in
Northern India, the conditions of potential
labourers in the Calcutta depots and aboard ships in
transit; through conditions on the plantations in
British Guiana (Guyana) and the protests and strikes
against abuses; to the final abolition campaign in
India and its success in 1918.
|
|
"Basdeo Mangru is a careful and thorough scholar who
has studied the sources in great detail, including
records which have scarcely been examined by earlier
writers on the Indian diaspora . . . A sound
contribution to West Indian and Imperial history."
—Donald
Wood, University of Sussex
".
. . will make a lasting impact on Indo-Caribbean
scholarship. He is meticulous, original, and above
all committed to his subject."
—David
Dabydeen
".
. . Erudite, lucid scholarship. Mangru's meticulous
research produces long-awaited and convincing
evidence of the struggles of the Indians for their
rightful place in the Caribbean."
—Frank
Birbalsingh, York University |
| |
|
|
|
CULTURAL
STUDIES |
|
ISBN:
9780920661321 |
|
Price: $21.95 |
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Inheritance (Yerushe) |
poetry
by Peretz Markish
foreword by Elie Wiesel
translated by
Mary Schulman
edited by Mary Schulman, Joan Braman, and
David Weintraub |
| This collection brings
together in English the work of one of the most
gifted and remarkable Jewish poets of the Soviet
Union, Peretz Markish. Suffused with a consciousness
of suffering, homelessness, and inevitably, the
Holocaust, these modernist poems are meditative,
elegiac, and prophetic in tone, and touch on the
themes of loss, loneliness, displacement, war, and
the yearning for renewal. Inextricably bound up with
Markish’s Eastern European Jewish identity, they are
also intensely personal, modern, and universal.
This book includes both the
English translation and the original Yiddish text. |
|
"A spectacular example
of Yiddish resilience."
— Jewish Book World |
| |
|
|
|
BILINGUAL
POETRY |
|
ISBN:
9781894770422 |
|
Price: $29.95 |
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
The Invention of Canada
Literary Text and the Immigrant Imaginary |
|
Arnold Harrichand
Itwaru |
|
The Invention of
Canada is a well-researched introduction to the
theory and practice of writing. There is an
effortless fluidity of style which makes the book a
pleasure to read. It is a powerful base from which
to construct the argument for a Canadian imagination
which displays the perils and strengths of an
alternative tradition to that dominated by Frye,
Atwood, Dennis Lee and the Toronto school. |
|
"This book is a valuable contribution to Canadian
critical theory. Itwaru's rigorous analysis of the
ideological subtexts of the novels of post World War
II immigrant writers upsets the proprieties of
Canadian criticism, which has consistently avoided
commenting on thematizations of racism,
exploitation, hegemony, and unequal distribution of
power."
—Arun Mukherjee |
| |
|
|
|
CANADIAN
STUDIES |
|
ISBN:
9780920661130 |
|
Out of Print |
| |
|
| |
| |
|
|
An Island is
a World |
|
Sam Selvon |
A novel of a
personal and intellectual quest in postwar Trinidad.
In the post-war Caribbean colony, as an earlier
generation thinks of returning to India, Foster, a
young man, goes to England and Rufus his brother
leaves for the United States, each in search of
himself and his world.
Combining his characteristic humour with a vivid
sense of place, Selvon's An Island is a World
tells a moving story of personal and intellectual
quest in our time.
With an introduction by Kenneth Ramchand |
|
“Selvon writes with great charm” —The
New York Times
"His evocative descriptions . . . his humourous
affectionate portrayal of character and his subtle
use of folklore . . . are evidence of a master
yarn-spinner."
—The Globe and
Mail |
| |
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9780920661345 |
|
Price: $13.95 |
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
| |
Jahaji
An Anthology of Indo-Caribbean Fiction |
|
Frank Birbalsingh |
|
Indians have lived in
the Caribbean for more than a hundred and sixty
years, ever since they took to the ships to work on
the sugar plantations. Jahaji (the term meaning
“ship traveler”) brings together a representative
selection of Indo-Caribbean fiction from three
generations of writers. Together, the sixteen
writers included here give us an imaginative
depiction of the experiences of their people across
a span of fifty years—the hopes, aspirations and
frustrations of life in colonial Trinidad and
Guyana, the post-independence tribulations of
third-world citizens, and the quest for meaning and
identity in the second migration to Canada, the
United States, and Britain.
Ismith Khan, Elahi
Baksh, Jan Shinebourne, Sharlow Mohammed, Madeline
Coopsammy, Narmala Shewcharan, Harishchandra
Khemraj, Sasenarine Persaud, Cyril Dabydeen,
Rooplall Monar, Marina Budhos, Christine Singh,
Shani Mootoo, Rabindranath Maharaj, Rajnie
Ramlakhan, Raywat Deonandan |
|
".
. . covers a range of prose styles, while thoroughly
exploring issues and preoccupations relevant to the
Indo-Caribbean experience."
—Caribbean Beat
Magazine |
| |
|
|
|
ANTHOLOGY |
|
ISBN:
9780920661888 |
|
Price: $21.95 |
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
| |
|
Last Cool
Days |
|
John Stewart |
Set in 1952 in colonial
Trinidad, this novel explores the barriers between
black and white in a highly stratified and racially
demarcated society.
Marcus is a young black village boy who gets
fatefully attracted by the strangeness and the
privileges of white children in his neighbourhood.
The awkardness and instability of this relationship
reinforce his sense of insecurity and alienation,
instilling in him an adult rage that leads to
tragedy. |
|
“The atmosphere and
insight displayed in this book make it a
considerable achievement.’’ —The Irish
Times |
| |
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9780920661550 |
|
Price: $14.95 |
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
| Lives: Whole and Otherwise |
| H Nigel Thomas |
These stories from Montreal present a gallery of characters,
Caribbean immigrants desperate and triumphant, always struggling
against the odds, as they make their way through the maze of
urban life.
Lives breaks the stereotypes to give us a side of Canada rarely
acknowledged.
more |
Praise for H
Nigel Thomas’ Behind the Face of Winter:
". . . may be the starkest, most distressingly honest, thus
unforgettable, account of the Caribbean-Canadian experience yet
written . . . a brave and eloquent voice. —Montreal
Gazette
|
|
|
|
|
FICTION /
STORIES
|
| ISBN: 9781894770613 |
| Price: $20.95 |
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
The Legend of
Rockhills and Other Stories |
|
Funso Aiyejina |
|
In these bitingly
satirical stories, Funso Aiyejina portrays the
vicissitudes of life under a military dictatorship
in the fictitious Nigerian district of Akoda.
Whether describing the travails of villagers, the
worries of Chiefs, the cravenness of professors, or
the greed of officials, what emerge vividly and
memorably in this exciting collection are the humour
and courage of ordinary people. |
|
“. . . a
unique voice modulated by both the Old World and New
World experience.” —Earl Lovelace |
|
Winner of the 2000
Commonwealth Writers Prize for the Africa region |
| |
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9780920661789 |
|
Price: $15.95 |
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Looking for
Josephine |
|
John Stewart |
A Trinidadian returns
after long years away in America and yearns for
points of contact with his past; a native Carib
wanders listlessly and homelessly across
meaning-less borders; a teacher confronts a young
guerrilla he might have helped create; a man is
haunted by a witnessed act of racial violence...
A gentle, deeply probing, and thoughtful look at
various facets of Trinidadian life. |
|
“This is a
classic work of literature and should find a welcome
space on the shelf beside Lamming and Naipaul.’’
—The Trinidad Guardian |
| |
|
|
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9780920661710 |
|
Price: $15.95
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
Lutesong and Lament
Tamil
Writing from Sri Lanka |
|
Chelva
Kanaganayakam |
|
The translations in
this book bring together, for the first time ever, a
comprehensive selection of modern, post-independence
Tamil creative writing from Sri Lanka. More than
thirty authors are represented, and their work
reflects a tumultuous reality gripped by ethnic,
religious, and linguistic strifes that have almost
torn this island nation apart. |
|
“. . . The first
major anthology of Sri Lankan Tamil writing
translated in English – Lutesong and Lament is a
rich, vibrant collection of contemporary writing . .
.” —The Toronto Star |
| |
|
|
|
ANTHOLOGY |
|
ISBN:
9780920661970 |
|
Price: $23.95 |
| |
| OUT OF STOCK |
| |
| |
|
| |
|
Majalis
al-ilm: Sessions of Knowledge |
|
Salima Bhimani |
|
Through lively
provocative discussions (“sessions”), thoughtful
analyses, and personal creative expression, nine
young people from diverse backgrounds consider their
lives as modern Muslim women in Canada. Majalis
al-ilm: Sessions of Knowledge counters
stereotypes with stories, views, and concerns that
are complex and not simplistic. The women consider
issues such as identity, gender, faith, and
community and probe the importance of Islam in their
lives. |
|
". . . provides a breath of life into contemporary
understanding of the inner dimension of Islam."
—Montreal Gazette
“...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 |
| |
|
 |
|
CULTURAL
STUDIES |
|
ISBN:
9781894770064 |
|
Price: $25.95 (Paperback)
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
ISBN:
9781894770057 |
|
Price: $36.95 (Hardcover)
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
Maples and
the Stream |
|
Lien Chao |
| This
long narrative poem in English and Chinese follows
one woman's journey from China to Canada over four
decades. In these pages the two languages sit side
by side, mirroring each other, each telling a tale
that alternates between confusion and despair and
hopes and dreams. Lien Chao depicts the struggle of
a generation in its persistent search for freedom
and for free artistic expression.
Includes both the
English and Mandarin texts |
|
"A fascinating and
unique creation."
—David
Helwig |
| |
|
|
|
|
POETRY
|
|
ISBN:
9780920661819
|
|
Price: $14.95
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Matuschka
Case |
|
Fraser Sutherland |
|
The poems in The
Matuschka Case represent the core of Fraser
Sutherland’s poetic preoccupations over several
decades. They are enquiries into the nature of
happiness, absent or present, deserved or
undeserved. For Sutherland, happiness consists in
the practice of art, and in often baffled attempts
to understand the other. Rueful and sardonic,
uncomfortable in his own white skin, he seeks the
other in everything that is foreign and unfamiliar. |
|
“Those
who think they know Sutherland's taste as a reviewer
may wish to look more closely at these poems, which
have something of the best of the jazzy, itinerant
Beat in the earlier work and a surprisingly deft, if
understated, cultural commentary in the latest.”
—The Globe and Mail |
| |
|
|
|
POETRY |
|
ISBN:
9781894770323 |
|
Price: $16.95
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
A Meeting of
Streams |
| MG
Vassanji |
|
At no time in history
has there been such a massive movement across
geographical, political, and cultural barriers as
the one we are witnessing in our own time. The South
Asian presence in Canada and the West is a result of
this movement. It originates predominately from the
countries of South Asia—India, Pakistan, Bangladesh,
and Sri Lanka—and those of the Caribbean and East
and South Africa.
The essays and
articles in this volume comprise a concerted and
many-sided look at the literature of this group.
Several of them are also informative surveys of the
important branches of this literature. Altogether
they provide the contexts for appreciating it, and
understanding it as an esthetic, social, and
cultural phenomenon. At the same time they address
several fundamental issues, regarding the
relationship of this literature both to traditional
(South Asian and Third World) and to mainstream
(Canada and North America) languages, literatures,
and themes. They probe the past, appraise the
present, and throw a glance at the future. |
| |
|
|
|
CULTURAL
STUDIES |
|
ISBN:
9780920661000 |
|
Price: $15.95
|
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
More Than
Skin Deep |
|
Lien Chao |
|
These poems, created
both in English and Chinese, explore the experiences
of Chinese and other Asian Canadians.
Using various poetic
forms, lyric and narrative, Lien Chao presents us
with experiences and reflections and confronts
issues of identity, assimilation, and language.
These issues occur in the very act of confronting
the two very different languages—Chinese and
English—with each other, so that that confrontation
itself becomes a metaphor for adaptation and
conflict of cultures in Canada.
Includes
both the English and Mandarin texts |
| |
|
|
|
BILINGUAL
POETRY |
|
ISBN:
9781894770187 |
|
Price: $16.95 |
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
Movable Margins
The
Shifting Spaces of Canadian Literature
|
|
Chelva
Kanaganayakam |
|
In
these essays some of Canada’s leading literary
critics examine how recent Canadian literature
addresses notions of multiplicity, and how ideas of
space and landscape complement and intersect with
the constantly changing facets of Canadian society.
The collection considers the works of a large number
of diverse writers, while dealing specifically with
genres such as Asian, African, and Native Canadian
writing.
The
contributors are respected scholars of Canadian
literature at major universities. |
| |
|
|
|
CRITICISM |
|
ISBN:
9781894770286 |
|
Price: $24.95 |
| |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
My Brahmin Days and Other Stories |
|
Cyril Dabydeen |
|
These closely observed
stories, with their gritty poetic descriptions and
finely ironic twists, confront Dabydeen’s Asian and
Caribbean-South American identity with his
experience of life in Canada, where he has lived for
over three decades. |
|
“It is
the epiphany, the moment of illumination, which
comes out of an ordinary experience.” —World
Literature Today |
| |
|
 |
|
FICTION |
|
ISBN:
9780920661857 |
|
Price: $15.95 |
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|