A definitive compendium of African myth and folktale, retold in rich, vibrant prose, Indaba, My Children is a stunning literary and ethnographic achievement. As a young man, Vusamazulu Credo Mutwa, a Zulu from the South African province of Natal, was determined to follow in the footsteps of his grandfather and become a tribal historian in order to keep the rich oral tradition of his culture alive. In this book, begun in response to the injustices against Africans and their culture, he sets these legends down in writing. He begins with the creation myth, when Ninavanhu-Ma, the Great Mother, cre... View More...
Celebrate the Joys That Are Sweet, Rich, and Delicious Chocolate is a blessing. It makes us feel warm and wonderful. But as we learn from the true stories in Chocolate for a Woman's Blessings, our greatest blessings often come from our greatest challenges. Gathered together by Kay Allenbaugh, creator of the beloved national bestsellers Chocolate for a Woman's Soul and Chocolate for a Woman's Heart, these 77 all-new, real-life tales are as varied as they are heartwarming. Here are women who have survived and thrived, lost and loved, cried and laughed, and most of all, discovered the infinite... View More...
Edited by one of Japan s leading and internationally acclaimed writers, this collection of short stories was compiled to mark the fortieth anniversary of the August 1945 atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Here some of Japan s best and most representative writers chronicle and re-create the impact of this tragedy on the daily lives of peasants, city professionals, artists, children, and families. From the crazy iris that grows out of season to the artist who no longer paints in color, the simple details described in these superbly crafted stories testify to the enormity of change in Jap... View More...
A Quill & Quire Book of the YearTen years after her stunning debut, Shauna Singh Baldwin returns to Goose Lane with an outstanding new collection of ten stories. Migrating from Central America to the American South, from Metro Toronto to the Ukraine, this book features an unforgettable cast of characters. In the title story, 16-year-old Megan hates her Pakistani grandmother -- until Grandma disappears. In the enchanting magical realism of "Naina," an Indo-Canadian woman is pregnant with a baby girl who refuses to be born. "The View from the Mountain" introduces Wilson Gonzales, who makes frien... View More...
Peopled by characters struggling with second marriages, abandoning artistic aspirations, or coming to terms with the betrayal of their own expectations, this collection of eleven new stories from Ann Beattie makes it strikingly clear why she is known as one of "American literature's most adept explorers and interpreters of the unraveling edges of life" (Miami Herald). From the elegiac story "The Famous Poet, Amid Bougainvillea," in which two men trade ruminations about the odd experience of being cared for by those you are meant to serve, to "The Big-Breasted Pilgrim," wherein a famous chef ge... View More...
When a woman discovers a fortune in the attic, she begins a pilgrimage that takes her to the knife-edge between blessing and curse. Two fatherless children think Mr. Crisander is nothing more than the creepy next-door neighbor--until they nearly kill his pot-bellied pig and learn the secrets of his past. A young girl talks about grade six, stealing cigarettes, and her sister's no-food diet while being photographed by an Internet pornographer.The stories of Suitable Precautions are fresh and haunting, resonant with the bitter beauty of lives derailed, reclaimed, celebrated, and questioned. By t... View More...
An exceptional fiction debut from a writer who is destined to break out and become this year's David Bezmozgis With this breathtaking first book of stories, twenty-eight-year-old Craig Boyko joins the front ranks of Canada's finest young writers. Boyko's stories explore those crucial moments when we seem most lost to ourselves and to those who think they know us best. Yet, whether he inhabits the mind of a precocious preteen or an elderly man, Boyko gives us characters we feel we have always known. When a man loses the will to live, a special replacement program allows him to go on -- with one... View More...
Here are five Nigerian folktales, retold in language as rhythmic as the beat of the story-drum, and illustrated with vibrant, evocative woodcuts. View More...
A "soucoyant" is an evil spirit in Caribbean lore, a reminder of past transgressions that refuse to diminish with age. In this beautifully told novel that crosses borders, cultures, and generations, a young man returns home to care for his aging mother, who suffers from dementia. In his efforts to help her and by turn make amends for their past estrangement from one another, he is compelled to re-imagine his mother's stories for her before they slip completely into darkness. In delicate, heartbreaking tones, the names for everyday things fade while at the same time a beautiful, haunted life, s... View More...
We are the first generation raised without God. We are creatures with strong religious impulses, yet they have nowhere to flow in this world of malls and TV, Kraft dinners and jets. How do we cope with loneliness? Anxiety? The collapse of relationships? How do we reach the quiet, safe layer of our lives? In this compellingly innovative collection of stories, bestselling author Douglas Coupland responds to these themes. Cutting through the hype of modern living to find a rare grace amid our lives, he uncovers a new kind of truth for a culture stuck on fast-forward. A culture seemingly beyond G... View More...
2012 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize -- Winner 2012 Governor General's Literary Award -- Finalist, English-Language Fiction In December of 1944, the Red Army entered Budapest to begin one of the bloodiest sieges of the Second World War. By February, the siege was over, but its effects were to be felt for decades afterward. Siege 13 is a collection of thirteen linked stories about this terrible time in history, both its historical moment, but also later, as a legacy of silence, haunting, and trauma that shadows the survivors. Set in both Budapest before and after the siege, and in the pres... View More...
In this disturbing collection of investigative fictions, Brian Fawcett asserts that the informational white noise of the Global Village is creating a cultural and intellectual breakdown that will eventually lead to the disappearance of local and individual identity. He argues that under the glitzy surfaces of television and the information "revolution" lie the same intentions that ran amok in Khmer Rouge Cambodia: the extermination of memory and imagination. View More...
