Amnesia
(Random House), by Douglas Cooper
Voice-over
(Stoddart), by Carole Corbeil
Brud
(Little, Brown), by Kenneth J. Harvey
Spin Dry
(Mosaic), by Greg Hollingshead
The Afterlife of George Cartwright
(McClelland & Stewart), by John Steffler
Douglas Cooper was born in Toronto in 1960. After completing a M.A. in philosophy, he led safaris in Kenya, wrote screenplays for a British film company, and lived for several years in Paris, where he completed his book Amnesia. The book's protagonist leads the reader on a dizzying journey through an intricate web of dreams, distortions, and dislocations.
Carole Corbeil was born and raised in Montreal; she attended University in Wales and at York University in toronto. Since moving to Toronto, Corbeil has been a staff writer for the Globe and Mail and has written on arts and culture for many magazines, including Saturday Night, This Magazine, and Canadian Art. Voice-over shifts between 1950s Montreal and 1980s Toronto to tell the story of two sisters, Claudine and Janina, and their mother, Odette.
Kenneth J. Harvey was born in St. John's Newfoundland in 1962, and has been the recipient of 11 Newfoundland Arts & Letters Awards for fiction, poetry, and photography. His short-story collection Directions for an Opened Body (Mercury, 1991) was a finalist for that year's Commonwealth Writers Prize. Brud is a modern-day parable of the exploits of a simpleton, who is destined to help save the world.
Greg Hollingshead was born in Toronto in 1947, grew up in Woodbridge, Ontario, and obtained a Ph.D. from the University of London. He has published two collections of short stories - Famous Player (Coach house, 1982) and White Buick (Oolichan, 1992) - and now makes his home in Edmonton. Spin Dry is a comic novel about lost fathers, suburban tract housing, Dick and Jane, and others.
John Steffler was born in Toronto in 1947, and has written several books of poetry, most recently, The Grey Islands (M&S, 1985) and The Wreckage of Play (M&S, 1988). He travelled in Europe for several years before moving to Newfoundland, where he teaches at Memorial University's Sir Wilfred Grenfell College in Corner Brook. The Afterlife of George Cartwright is largely set in the turbulent second half of the 18th century, and interweaves a contemporary narration.
