Those of you who are reading here now, but not reading Alistair MacLeod’s short stories, will probably only be interested in the first couple of paragraphs after this introduction. Feel free to skip past the section that I've titled The Underneath, written with those who know the story-or other
Originally inspired by the 1918-2018 centenary of the Spanish Flu, Emma Donoghue began writing this novel in the tradition of her historical novels like Slammerkin and The Wonder. Her author’s note includes this statistic: “The influenza pandemic of 1918 killed more people than the First World War—an estimated 3
Your airway is the width of your smallest finger: you can see how things can go wrong. "Airway first. Breathing next. Medicine is life caring for itself. To me, it's the greatest story." James Maskalyk's story is structured from "A is for Airway" through "XY is for a man"
Originally written after the author had been diagnosed with a brain tumour, Testament is a response to the news that Vickie Gendreau would have little time left to live: about a year. 2012; Book Thug, 2016 The novel's translator, Aimee Wall, writes about the work, a few months
Having stories narrated by - or assembled via - a number of voices is a popular way of world-building. Each of the following books plays with this technique, allowing different perspectives to combine and create a more credible space for readers to inhabit. Just as in Meg Wolitzer's The Position, the matriarch
