search

frames

Books by TSAR Publications

Home

Books by Category
African & Caribbean
Asian & South Asian
Canadian Postcolonial
Gay & Lesbian
Women
 
 
 
 
  TSAR News
  TSAR Events
  New Release
  Book Reviews
  Home
 
 

Search by Book Title and Genre

 
A-M N-Z
 
all prices are in Canadian dollars
 
Catalogue PDF
 
 
N

Nehanda

Yvonne Vera

 

In the late nineteenth century white settlers and administrators arrive to occupy the African country of Zimbabwe (Rhodesia). Nehanda, a village girl, is recognized through omens and portents as a saviour. The resulting uprising by the Africans is brutally crushed but looks forward to the war of independence that succeeded a century later.
Told in lucid, poetic prose, this is a gripping story about the first meeting of a people with their colonizer.


“...crisp and touching...restrained and well-focused...’’

The Weekly Mail & Guardian (South Africa)

“...a meditation on fate and language...a compelling story.’’

—The Toronto Star

“Reading [it]...is like savouring a sweet delicacy. Every page possesses its own special flavour; every morsel, a sinful delight.’’

—Books in Canada

“...elegant...magical... “
—The Toronto Review

FICTION
ISBN: 9780920661413 
Price: $15.95
Buy this book:

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Back to Top

Night Artillery

Anurima Banerji

 

Passionate and subtly exotic, keenly aware of Persian mystical love concepts, and with a trained eye on Hindu mythology, these supple new poems explore the territories of love, the longings of the body, and the pains of loss and exile.

 


“... lyrics that are almost too posh, almost too sumptuous...hauntingly lovely.”
—Halifax Chronicle Herald

POETRY
ISBN: 9780920661901 
Price: $13.95
Buy this book:

 
Back to Top

No More Watno Dur

Sadhu Binning

 

"Sadhu Binning's poetry gently provokes and evokes. He uses the tools of language, both Punjabi and English, to guide the reader through a private journey of public relevance. Rooted in a history of cultural and labour activism, this collection questions our notions of home, family and community. No More Watno Dur (Watno Dur means 'far away from the mother land') firmly establishes Binning as an essential poet who must be read in order to understand this continually unfolding experience of home and homeland in the Western world..."

Zool Suleman, Editor, Rungh Magazine

POETRY
ISBN: 9780920661451 
Price: $11.95
Buy this book:

 
Back to Top

Novels and the Nation

Essays in Canadian Literature

Frank Birbalsingh

 

Whatever it has meant historically and come to mean today, Canadian identity has always been felt passionately, even as Canadian nationhood has been perceived to be at the brink, under attack from forces both within and without the country.

In these eighteen essays Birbalsingh discusses the evolution of Canadian identity and nationhood as reflected, predominately, in the English fiction of this country, from the writings of the first British expatriates, through the colonial, empire-conscious works of the nineteenth century, to the strongly nationalistic literary consciousness of the mid-twentieth century and finally the contemporary work of a multicultural country continually transforming itself.

This is a timely work with fresh insights on over thirty writers, including Sara Jeanette Duncan, Stephen Leacock, Mordecai Richler, Marian Engel, Austin Clarke, Robertson Davies, Ethel Wilson, and considerations of Native, Jewish, Caribbean, and South Asian writers.

CANADIAN STUDIES
ISBN: 9780920661499 
Price: $19.95
Buy this book:

 
 
 
 
 
Back to Top
O

The Obeah Man

Ismith Khan

 

“A brilliant revelation of the dark reality under a lively Caribbean surface, The Obeah Man combines the humour of Samuel Selvon, the pathos of George Lamming and the irony of V S Naipaul all in one.”

Frank Birbalsingh, York University

“…a compelling story of living in changing times…its message and impressions are long lasting…The Obeah Man is a very human story.”

 Cecil Foster, The Toronto Review

FICTION
ISBN: 9780920661468 
Price: $13.95
Buy this book:

 
Back to Top

Once Upon a Time in Bollywood

The Global Swing in Hindi Cinema

Gurbir Jolly, Zenia Wadhwani, and Deborah Barretto

 

Once Upon a Time in Bollywood presents an extravaganza of essays on globalization and contemporary Hindi cinema (“Bollywood”). The wide-ranging analytic strategies in the collection—including ethnographic self-reflection, literary comparison, economic contextualization, and biographic study – bear witness to Hindi cinema’s aesthetically elaborate and politically entangled treatment of postcolonial concerns. Together, these essays invite fresh, critically informed engagements with many of the key issues and creative tensions that continue to shape the world’s most prolific film industry. For connoisseurs and critics of Hindi cinema alike, Once Upon a Time in Bollywood presents stirring insights into popular culture.

 

CULTURAL STUDIES
ISBN: 9781894770408 
Price: $25.95
Buy this book:

  Read an except
  Read reviews
 
Audio clip:
  Listen
(CHRY FM)

Back to Top

Oppositional Aesthetics

Readings from a Hyphenated Space

Arun Prabha Mukherjee

 

In these closely argued essays, taking examples from writing and film, Mukherjee considers the place of the third world person – both as artistic creator and as a subject of artistic endeavour – in the West.
This important work includes detailed and original considerations of the works of David Lean, Michael Ondaatje, MG Vassanji, Earle Birney, Rohinton Mistry, Neil Bissoondath, Dionne Brand, and numerous others.

CRITICISM
ISBN: 9780920661420 
Price: $24.95
Buy this book:

 
Back to Top

Ordeal by Fire

A Memoir

Rita Nayar

 

On Thursday May 22, 1997, a night of the full moon, a brutal act and a raging fire forever changed the lives of an Indian family in a Toronto suburb. 

Born in Rajasthan, India, Rita leaves her native country to live with her diplomat father in exotic places abroad. Her innocent, happy, and sheltered childhood comes to an end with her marriage.  Shock and horror follow, for the union is violently abusive. The couple move to England, then to Canada, where the outcome is breakup, then the tragedy of a murder-suicide. 

“Nayar has the reader’s full sympathy, for her story is achingly sad.” Vancouver Sun

MEMOIR
ISBN: 9781894770101 
Price: $21.95
Buy this book:

 
Back to Top
P

The Palm Leaf Fan

and Other Stories

Kwai-Yun Li

 

From crumbling shops in Chinatown to decaying tanneries in Tangra, Kwai-yun Li's collection of linked short stories expose us to the life of a marginalized community in postcolonial Calcutta.
We meander into Wong's Shoe Shop, where a mother arranges a marriage for her six-year-old daughter. We stop at a school for girls, where the principal singles out students who have large breasts for punishment. We pause by a temple guarded by a billy goat where family drama rages. We rally with politicians while the monsoon rain drenches us. We relax under waving palms while the setting sun shimmers over the surface of the Tangra fish ponds.
Kwai-yun Li's sensitivity and quirky sense of humour will keep us wanting to return to the ghetto again and again.

 

"The short stories in this volume are marked by a sureness of touch and an acuity of observation that match the best in their genre."

— China Report

 

"The most striking element of Li’s writing is her ability
to synthesize delicate, rich imagery with the dirt of reality."
— City Masala

FICTION
ISBN: 9781894770316 
Price: $18.95
Buy this book:

 
  Read an except
  Read reviews
 
 
 
 
 
Back to Top

Pappaji Wrote Poetry in a Language I Cannot Read

Rajinderpal S Pal

 

The poems in this book form a narrative whole that leaps between past and present, between childhood and adulthood, and between languages. Issues of cross-cultural politics and relationships are addressed, and loss across generations and migrations across continents. All of this is entwined with  the search for the poet-father and the attempt to come to terms with the past.

 

"These poems travel continents, move through emotional and political geographies of leaving and longing. From India to England to Canada, Rajinderpal S Pal searches for his poet father's legacy in language and body. Textured and sensuous, challenging in form and content, these poems invite us to hold them." —Roberta Rees

POETRY
ISBN: 9780920661741 
Price: $13.95
Buy this book:

 
Back to Top

Peng Ma: Chinese Brush Painting

edited by Lien Chao

 

Chinese brush painting refers to paintings utilizing Chinese brush, ink, and Xuan paper. By now Chinese brush painting has been the predominant art form in the history of Chinese art for over one thousand years. In the history of world arts, it stands on its own, flying a unique banner. Chinese Canadian artist Peng Ma has been a professional artist for over fifty years. Crossing the borders between the East and the West, Ma’s paintings speak contemporary sentiments. This collection has gathered seventy of his latest achievements from the past decade.

 
"All his work is sophisticated in its composition, exquisite with strong, decisive brushstrokes—showing clearly the artist knows how to reveal in his work his incredible sensitivity to beauty, bringing it to its highest level."
— tamara jaworska, cm, rca, mfa

 

 

ART / CHINESE CULTURE
ISBN: 9781894770453 
70 colour illustrations
Price: $36.00
Buy this book:

 
  Photo gallery
 
 
 
Back to Top

Postcolonialism: My Living

Arun Prabha Mukherjee

 

This work charts the author’s intellectual journey during the last ten years as an academic teaching Postcolonial literature in a Canadian university. The essays critique the dominant models of Postcolonial theory that emerge from metropolitan centres and ignore the specifics of time and place. Arun Mukherjee tests these theories by applying them to her classroom experience of teaching authors such as Mulk Raj Anand, Dionne Brand, Anita Desai, Claire Harris, Bessie Head, Sky Lee, and many others.

CANADIAN STUDIES
ISBN: 9780920661758 
Price: $21.95
Buy this book:

 
Back to Top

Prairie Journey

In the Prison of My Skin

Madeline Coopsammy

 

This collection is a sensory journey from a warm green equatorial island to the changing seasons of a Prairie landscape. These poems explore the effects of colonialism, ancestral memories, and immigration on the poet's journey from youth to maturity. The frantic push for first-world development, rapidly eroding the once-pristine landscape and simple way of life of a third-world island, and creating a new race of colonials, is passionately delineated. The book is sectioned as follows: Roots, Indian Sojourn, Prairie Seasons, and Autumnal Season.

 

"Poems which are well worth reading not only for their craft, but also for their honest content."

— Trinidad Express

POETRY
ISBN: 9781894770170 
Price: $16.95
Buy this book:

 
  Read reviews
 
Back to Top
R

Rainsongs of Kotli

Tariq Malik

 

Set in the romantic Himalayan valleys, amidst the breathtaking mountain snowmelts and the monsoon rainstorms, these beautifully told and haunting stories explore the lives and the longings and memories of the Lohar people of Kotli.

Much has changed in the Lohar village since the independence and partition of India, and there is a story and a secret to every person, every family. A man’s wife turns out to be a stranger, and his house is not quite his own, when two strangers appear and dig out their past from its earth; a boy contemplates the mystery behind an old picture...

 

 

". . . a memorable, deeply felt and frequently amusing debut, full of lively conversation and sure-handed narratives."
— BC BookWorld

 

FICTION
ISBN: 9781894770156 
Price: $18.95
Buy this book:

 
  Read reviews
  Interview
 
Back to Top

Red Lacquered Chopsticks

Betty Warrington-Kearsley

 

This first volume of poetry bridges the spaces between cultures. From detailed observation and personal experience, with honesty and clarity, these poems reflect upon the poet’s Asian and Western experiences. Ancient legends counterpoint modern observation; beauty and peace are offset by the raw reality of death and dying.
Erudite and referential in both cultures, these poems are also intelligent and accessible.

 

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, University of Ottawa

POETRY
ISBN: 9781894770330 
Price: $16.95
Buy this book:

 
  Read reviews
 
 
Back to Top

Return to Arcadia

H Nigel Thomas

 

 

When at age 51, Joshua Éclair—victim of a pygmalianism gone awry—emerges from amnesia in a hospital in Montreal, he must explore what makes him want to erase his identity, and must undertake the process of exorcising what has brought him to this pass. This is the gripping story of a man’s search for sanity set in the fictional Caribbean Isabella Island and the various places Joshua has fled to: Montreal, New York, Tallahassee, London, Paris and Madrid.
This is a finely accomplished novel about a very modern predicament: the malformed dysfunctional identity in the global village.

"In lean, precise prose, Return to Arcadia journeys through the unspeakable and tabooed in the contemporary Caribbean, reminding us that the brutalities of slavery and colonialism continue to raise hell and fierce memory in the more secret realms of flesh and desire."
Thomas Glave, State University of New York

"Thomas offers a fine story of forgiveness, self-actualization, and belonging."
Montreal Review of Books

FICTION
ISBN: 9781894770385
Price: $20.95
Buy this book:

 
  Read reviews
  Interviews
 
Audio clip:
  Listen
(CHRY FM)

Back to Top

River and Bridge

Meena Alexander

 

“In this new collection we are privy to the full and variegated display of [Meena Alexander's] poetry.’’ Marilyn Chin

 


“Meena Alexaner is one of the finest Indian poets writing today.’’

Keki N. Daruwalla

POETRY
ISBN: 9780920661567 
Price: $11.95
Buy this book:

 
Back to Top

Rootless but Green Are the Boulevard Trees

Uma Parameswaran

 

In Winnipeg in the late seventies, an Indian immigrant family (the Bharves), are on the brink of coming apart due to a clash of values and ambitions. Sharad (the father), a former scientist, works as a real-estate agent; Savitri (the mother) is a teacher; Veejala (the aunt) is a frustrated scientist at the university. Jyoti (the daughter) has a white boyfriend and will probably move out. A crisis occurs as Veejala announces that she is going back to India and Jayant (the son) is packing to go off to Montreal. A phone call comes during this tense situation.

". . . an effective examination of all the issues that immigrants face. It would be an effective catalyst for discussion in today’s high schools which are full of youth from every continent."
Harriet Zaidman, CM: Canadian Review of Materials

DRAMA
ISBN: 9781894770354 
Price: $16.95
Buy this book:

 
  Read reviews
 
Back to Top

Rosa's District 6

Rozena Maart

 

In Cape Town’s District 6, despite the brutality of apartheid laws, the lives of people go on. In these five connected stories, the central character is a precocious little girl called Rosa. Through her adventures in the neighbourhood we come to meet and know the District and its many colourful inhabitants--including Mamma Zila, Auntie Flowers, Mrs Hood and Uncle Peter--and their confusing, enigmatic lives, and all too human quirks.

"Maart observes the human costs of apartheid and homophobia with a keen eye."
— The Globe and Mail

"Consistently compelling."
— NOW

FICTION
ISBN: 9781894770163 
Price: $18.95
Buy this book: