Synopses & Reviews
Canadian women have made remarkable contributions to world literature over the past 150 years, especially to the short story genre. Carol Shields won the Pulitzer Prize, and Margaret Atwood, Janette Turner Hospital, and Shields were all short-listed for the Booker Award. Now available in paperback, this book offers work from not only those prestigious names, but assembles a diverse cross-section of Canadian women's writing. Together, the fifty stories included here form a kind of collective narrative of women's experience past and present. All the stories are about women: in childhood, adolescence, maturity, old age; in relationships as daughters, sisters, lovers, mothers; and in a variety of social and political contexts. Their authors reflect Canada's racial and ethnic diversity as well as its geographic expanse, and the writers cover a wide range of styles from documentary narrative, romance adventure, and satiric social comedy to science fiction and postmodern metafiction. But regardless of genre, they all write confidently and eloquently about women's lives. No reader will fail to be amused, enthralled, intrigued, and invigorated.
Review
"The most delicious part of this book is that it brings together a great many very good stories....Readers who love fiction...will be enriched by this collection."--The Montreal Gazette
Synopsis
Canadian women have made remarkable contributions to world literature over the past 150 years, especially to the short story genre. Carol Shields won the Pulitzer Prize, and Margaret Atwood, Janette Turner Hospital, and Shields were all short-listed for the Booker Award. Now available in paperback, this book offers work from not only those prestigious names, but assembles a diverse cross-section of Canadian women's writing. Together, the fifty stories included here form a kind of collective narrative of women's experience past and present. All the stories are about women: in childhood, adolescence, maturity, old age; in relationships as daughters, sisters, lovers, mothers; and in a variety of social and political contexts. Their authors reflect Canada's racial and ethnic diversity as well as its geographic expanse, and the writers cover a wide range of styles from documentary narrative, romance adventure, and satiric social comedy to science fiction and postmodern metafiction. But regardless of genre, they all write confidently and eloquently about women's lives. No reader will fail to be amused, enthralled, intrigued, and invigorated.
About the Author
Rosemary Sullivan is Professor of English at the University of Toronto. She has taught at the University of Dijon, the University of Bordeaux, and the University of Victoria. Her books include
The Red Shoes: Margaret Atwood Starting Out and the award-winning
Shadow Maker: The Life of Gwendolyn MacEwen. Rosemary Sullivan was born in Montreal where she received her B.A. from McGill University. She completed her M.A. at the University of Connecticut and her Ph.D. at the University of Sussex. She has taught at the University of Dijon, the University of Bordeaux, and University of Victoria, and is currently a Professor of English at the University of Toronto. Her academic honors include Killam and Guggenheim fellowships, a Canada-United States-Mexico residency award, and a Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute Teaching Residency in India.
Table of Contents
Catharine Parr Traill(1802-1899): The Bereavement
E. Pauline Johnson ("Tekahionwake") (1861-1913): A Red Girl's Reasoning
Sara Jeannette Duncan (1861-2911): The Pool in the Desert
Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942): The Quarantine of Alexander Abraham's
Ethel Wilson (1888-1980): We Have to Sit Opposite
Sheila Watson (b.1909): Antigone
Helen Weinzweig (b.1915): Causation
P.K.Page (b.1916): Unless the Eye Catch Fire
Elizabeth Spencer (b.1921): I, Maureen
Mavis Gallant (b.1922): The Moslem Wife
Margaret Laurence (1926-87): The Rain Child
Rachel Wyatt (b.1929): The Day Marlene Dietrich Died
Alice Munro (b.1931): The Albanian Virgin
Jane Rule (b.1931): Lilian
Marian Engel (1933-1985): Anita's Dance
Joan Clark (b.1934): The Train Family
Audrey Thomas (b.1935): Local Customs
Carol Shields (b.1935): The Orange Fish
Elisabeth Harvor (b.1936): There Goes the Groom
Margaret Atwood (b.1939): Bluebeard's Egg
Sharon Butala (b.1940): Fever
Cynthia Flood (b.1940): My Father Took a Cake to France
Beth Brant (Degonwadonti) (b.1941): A Long Story
Emma Lee Warrior (b.1941): Compatriots
Himani Bannerji (b.1942): On a Cold Day
Sandra Birdsell (b.1942): Night Travellers
Janette Turner Hospital (b.1942): Here and Now
Isabel Huggan (b.1943): Celia Behind Me
Meeka Walsh (b.1943): No More Denver Sandwiches
Bonnie Burnard (b.1945): Crush
Gail Scott (b.1945): Tall Cowboys and True
Susan Swan (b.1945): The Man Doll
Marlene Nourbese Philip (b.1947): Burn Sugar
Margaret Gibson (b.1948): The Butterfly Ward
Katherine Govier (b.1948): The King of Siam
Judy Fong Bates (b.1949): My Sister's Love
Connie Gault (b.1949): Inspection of a Small Village
Jane Urquhart (b.1949): The Death of Robert Browning
Anne Carson (b.1950): Water Margins: An Essay on Swimming By My Brother
Barbara Gowdy (b.1950): Ninety-three Million Miles Away
Elizabeth Hay (b.1951): The Friend
Dionee Brand (b.1953): Photograph
Janice Kulyk Keefer (b.1953): Going Over The Bars
Judith Kalman (b.1954): The County of Birches
Diane Schoemperlen (b.1954): Five Small Rooms (A Murder Mystery)
Linda Svendsen (b.1954): White Shoulders
Aritha Van Herk (b.1954): In Visible Ink
Shree Ghatage (b.1957): Deafness Comes to Me
Lynn Coady (b.1970): A Great Man's Passing