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Occupy the Right: Ezra Levant and the Redefinition of Canadian Character
Reviewed in this essay: Ezra Levant, The Enemy Within: Terror, Lies, and the Whitewashing of Omar Khadr. McClelland & Stewart, 2011. Ezra Levant’s jeremiad, The Enemy Within: Terror, Lies, and the Whitewashing of Omar Khadr, is not actually about the eponymous Pakistani-Canadian, but rather about Toronto and the “professional protestors of the anti-war left.”…
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Two Poems
Transnational marriage A tongue from a developed country Fallen into a developing mouth It discovers, the sanitation there’s a bit problematic The dentists are very irresponsible A cotton-ball from many years ago Still exuding residual warmth in some cranny It sheepishly wishes to make an exit But is clamped onto by the tips of incomplete…
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The Land of the Trinity Ad Infinitum: Diaspora Culture in Port of Spain
I Twenty years ago, quixotically pursuing a doomed romance, I moved to Port of Spain, the capital of Trinidad and Tobago. Part of what decided me to go was the time I’d spent among the malcontents of the city’s Woodford Square. On any given day there was a Dickensian cast of cranks, madmen and impassioned…
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Nicole Krauss at Luminato 2012
Nicole Krauss, author of Great House, The History of Love, and Man Walks into a Room, as well as many short stories, read an unpublished story at Luminato this week, entitled “A garden is an arrangement of light.” It was a special event, introduced by the visibly excited artistic director of Luminato, Jorn Weisbrodt, and…
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TRB Podcast: Deidre Lynch on the Culture of Scrap-books in the Georgian Period
Listen here: [audio: May2012/lynch.mp3] On March 22, Professor Deidre Lynch delivered a lecture as part of the Book History and Print Culture Lecture Series at the University of Toronto. Following is an excerpt from the U of T press release on Dr. Lynch’s talk, titled “Recycled Paper: Readers’ Scrap-books in Late Georgian Literary Culture.” Enjoy!…
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Kim Thúy’s Ru
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Annie Proulx at Luminato 2012
Annie Proulx spoke to New Yorker fiction editor, Deborah Treisman, at the Bell Lightbox on Sunday, June 12, as part of the Luminato Festival. Talk turned to environmentalism, her characters, including the famous gay ranchers of Brokeback Mountain, and her beloved typewriter. The first hint from Annie Proulx of her Luddite leanings came early on,…
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Bookishness: Week of June 11, 2012
The 2012 Luminato Festival hosts its author series this week, and last night’s talk with Annie Proulx augers well for the rest. Our picks: author Nicole Krauss on Monday night at 7 p.m. at the Bell Lightbox Lapham’s Quarterly eponymous founding editor Lewis Lapham on Thursday the 14th at 7 p.m; Linden MacIntyre, Ayad…
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TRB Podcast: Matthew Kirschenbaum on the Literary History of Word Processing
Listen here: [audio:May2012/kirschenbaum.mp3] On March 1, Dr. Matthew Kirschenbaum spoke at the University of Toronto’s iSchool Colloquium. Dr. Kirschenbaum’s lecture, titled “Track Changes: The Literary History of Word Processing” examines the past and continued influence that word processing technology has had on the craft of literary composition. Listen and enjoy! The U of T press…
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A Horrifying Tale of Undying Obsession
If I can credit anyone with breeding an interest in me for flesh-eating zombies, demons, and blood-sucking creatures of the night, it would be R. L. Stine, creator of the kids’ horror book series Goosebumps, a franchise which turns twenty this year. James Parker has a piece in the March edition of The Atlantic in…
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Weird and interesting and funny and emotional stuff: a Q&A with Rebecca Rosenblum
TRB: Where do stories start, for you? RR: Anywhere, really. I don’t exactly “use” or replicate real-life events in my stories, but real life is certainly the mulch from which stories grow. Things that have happened to me and my friends, or things I’ve overheard on the bus get woven into a story that’s largely…
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Bookishness: Week of June 4, 2012
OWS v. NYC Occupy Wall Street has filed a lawsuit against New York City for the destruction of books and equipment from the People’s Library seized during an overnight raid last November. Short bursts of story The New Yorker recently published a short story by Jennifer Egan in a series of tweets over the course of ten nights. Of…