In a few weeks, Jean-Michel Fortier’s new novel The Electric Baths will be reviewed in the new issue of World Literature Today, translated by Katherine Hastings. A galloping read populated by an inordinate number of widows and tragic ends. There are some bloody bits but you're caught between gasping
Welcome to the fourth journey inspired by my desk calendar—first described en route to Copenhagen, then London and Havana. Just this random spark, my curiosity, and my library card: everything I needed to expand my horizons, to counter the inclination to withdraw when the news seemed menacing. But
Some might be surprised that Mavis Gallant gets children, that she can as easily climb inside their view on the world as she does. I'm thinking about stories like About Geneva and The Rejection. But these children feel apart from the others around them, as though their relationships with
Language is important in “Orphans’ Progress”, specifically the relationship between English-speakers in Ontario and French-speakers in Quebec (predominantly Montreal, with a reference to Chicoutimi). It matters, immediately and lastingly, because the orphans, Cathie and Mildred, are the children of an English-Canadian man and a French-Canadian woman. Governor General's Award Winner
Bette Bao Lord's In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson (1984) opens when Bandit is living in China in her grandparents' home. She is ten years old (nine in Western birthdays) and she is about to learn that she will be going to live in the United States.
