The Tin Flute (New Canadian Library)
by Gabrielle Roy
from New Canadian Library
The Tin Flute, Gabrielle Roy’s first novel, is a classic of Canadian fiction. Imbued with Roy’s unique brand of compassion and compelling understanding, this moving story focuses on a family in the Saint-Henri slums of Montreal, its struggles to overcome poverty and ignorance, and its search for love.
An affecting story of familial tenderness, sacrifice, and survival during the Second World War, The Tin Flute won both the Governor General’s Award and the Prix Fémina of France. The novel was made into a critically acclaimed motion picture in 1983.
My New York Diary
by Julie Doucet
from Drawn and Quarterly
Les Belles Soeurs: (Revised)
by Michel Tremblay
from Talonbooks
My Most Secret Desire
by Julie Doucet
from Drawn and Quarterly
Considered by many to be the most influential female cartoonist ever, Julie Doucet created an iconic body of work in the ten short years she solely devoted herself to her trailblazing comic-book series Dirty Plotte. Her comics are densely inked and detailed with a pulsating neurosis from a decidedly female point of view that set the comic-book world on its head when the series debuted. Doucet returns to comics after a five-year hiatus with a reworked edition of her dream journal My Most Secret Desire, complete with never-before-published material.
My Most Secret Desire is considered to be Doucet ’s most innovative work, exploring the longings, pressures, and exploits of the feminine subconscious. Nightmarish tales of pregnancy, menstruation, sex changes, and boyfriends haunt Doucet’s nocturnal psyche with a feverish and surreal pitch.
Cult Fiction: Art & Comics
by Paul Gravett
from Hayward Gallery Publishing
The comic book, the cartoon strip and the single-panel gag are recurring motifs in twentieth-century art, providing a platform for narrative, political critique, graphic clarity, and, of course, fun. Cult Fiction: Art & Comics examines the work of artists who produce comics and cartoons as part of their practice, as well as those who employ the language of the comic in their work, borrowing from stylistic sources across high and low culture. Accompanying a U.K. exhibition tour, and designed by Fantagraphics art director Jacob Covey, this catalogue's bold layout complements the artworks included in its pages. An essay by Paul Gravett, a writer and curator who has worked in comics publishing and promotion for over 20 years, illuminates the long-standing love affair between fine art and comics, emphasizing contemporary practitioners in Britain and the U.S., including Laylah Ali, Glen Baxter, Daniel Clowes, Liz Craft, R. Crumb, Adam Dant, Julie Doucet, Debbie Dreschler, Marcel Dzama, Mark Kalesniko, Kerstin Kartscher, Killoffer, Chad McCail, Paul McDevitt, Kerry James Marshall, Kim Pace, Raymond Pettibon, Olivia Plender, Jon Pylypchuk, James Pyman, Joe Sacco, David Shrigley, Posy Simmonds, Richard Slee, Carol Swain, Stephane Blanquet, Melinda Gebbie, Alan Moore and Travis Millard. Specially commissioned self-portraits and question-and-answer forms filled out by hand by all contributing artists make Cult Fiction one-of-a-kind.
Full-Contact Karate
An Aroma of Coffee
Translated by David Homel
Durer's Angel
by Marie-Claire Blais
from Talonbooks
The Little Girl Who Was Too Fond of Matches
by Gaetan Soucy
from House of Anansi Press
Pélagie: The Return to Acadie
by Antonine Maillet
from Goose Lane Editions
In 1979, the legendary Acadian novelist Antonine Maillet won France’s most coveted literary award, the Prix Goncourt, for the original version of this novel, Pélagie-la-Charette. In her acceptance speech, she said, "I have avenged my ancestors." Goose Lane Editions is proud to re-issue this classic of Acadian literature to mark the 400th anniversary of the founding of Acadie and the début of the novel’s musical adaptation, Pélagie: An Acadian Odyssey. This funny, lyrical account of a daring Acadian widow’s journey home from exile is the Mother Courage of Acadian literature. At thirty-five, Pélagie is a survivor of the Great Disruption of 1755, when British soldiers deported Acadians who had farmed along the Bay of Fundy for generations. Splitting up families, the soldiers tossed men, women, and children pell-mell into ships and dispatched them to ports all along the eastern seaboard of the US and to Louisiana. When it was heard years later that the British would tolerate their return to Acadie, thousands loaded possessions and children onto handcarts and set out on foot. After fifteen years of working as a slave in the cotton fields of Georgia, Pélagie, too, has had enough. Drawn home as if by a magnet, inspired by her love of her family and of Beausoleil, a heroic sea captain, and determined to outrace the “Wagon of Death,” Pélagie sets off to take her people on a 3,000-mile trek back to their homeland. Her single cart, pulled by six oxen, soon attracts scattered Cormiers and LeBlancs, Landrys and Poiriers, Maillets and Légers. Together, this caravan of colourful Acadians undertakes a ten-year journey up the Atlantic coast to their childhood homes
+++
