Kirjahaku

* Literary fiction of the highest order, this is an unforgettable novel set against the backdrop of Cambodia's savage killing fields

From the internationally bestselling author of The Disappeared comes a profound meditation on the cultural impact of storytelling and testimony in five intimate and illuminating essays. In this moving collection, critically acclaimed novelist Kim Echlin examines how we turn to literature to measure our lives against the darknesses of our time. Tell Others explores how literature resists silencing and repression with truth and imagination. Echlin skillfully blends her lived experience in different parts of the world--teaching in post-revolutionary China, researching war crimes in the former Yugoslavia, studying under one of Canada's most respected Elders, Basil H. Johnston--with wide-ranging reading that offers solace and highlights the possibility to transform outrage into understanding and resistance. Looking to her favourite writers--Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, Ma Jian, Toni Morrison, Margaret Atwood, and Haruki Murakami, to name a few--Echlin grapples in fresh ways with tyranny, war, sexual violence, and censorship to bear witness to the past and look to the future. Written in characteristically unsparing and evocative prose, Tell Others is an invitation to all readers to acknowledge histories that are difficult to see and to make meaning from the stories that buried bones tell. The author proceeds for this book will be donated to PEN Canada and PEN International.

From the internationally bestselling and Giller-shortlisted author of The Disappeared comes an astounding, poetic novel about war and loss, power and shame, and the strength of women through it all. It's been eleven years since Gota has seen Kosmos, yet she still finds herself fantasizing about their intimate year together in Paris. Now it's 1999 and, working as a journalist for a Toronto travel magazine, she hears about a film festival in Sarajevo, where she knows Kosmos will be with his theatre company. She takes the assignment to investigate the fallout of the Bosnian war--and to reconnect with the love of her life. But when they are reunited, she finds a man, and a country, altered beyond belief or recognition. Sitting in a small caf , Kosmos introduces Gota to the new woman in his life, Edina. While Gota treads the precarious terrain of her evolving connection to Kosmos, she and Edina forge an unexpected bond. A lawyer and a force to be reckoned with, Edina exposes the sexual violence that she and thousands of others survived. Suddenly, a trip fueled by long-lost love becomes a passionate fight for justice: Gota is determined to tell their stories and will stop at nothing to make their voices heard. Before long, she finds her life entwined with the community of women and travels with them to The Hague to confront their abusers. The events Gota covers--and the stories she hears--will change her life forever. Written in Kim Echlin's masterfully luminescent prose, Speak, Silence weaves together the experiences of a resilient sisterhood and tells the story of the real-life trial that would come to shape history. In a heart-wrenching tale of shame and loss and a beautiful illustration of power and love, Echlin explores what it means to speak out against the very people who would do anything to silence you.

WINNER OF THE 2021 TORONTO BOOK AWARD "An incredibly forceful book that insists readers sit up and pay attention" (Quill & Quire) from the internationally bestselling and Scotiabank Giller Prize-shortlisted author of The Disappeared. It's been eleven years since Gota has seen Kosmos, yet she still finds herself fantasizing about their intimate year together in Paris. Now it's 1999 and, working as a journalist, she hears about a film festival in Sarajevo, where she knows Kosmos will be with his theatre company. She takes the assignment to investigate the fallout of the Bosnian war--and to reconnect with the love of her life. But when they are reunited, she finds a man, and a country, altered beyond recognition. Kosmos introduces Gota to Edina, the woman he has always loved. While Gota treads the precarious terrain of her evolving connection to Kosmos, she and Edina forge an unexpected bond. A lawyer and a force to be reckoned with, Edina exposes the sexual violence that she and thousands of others survived in the war. Before long, Gota finds her life entwined with the community of women and travels with them to The Hague to confront their abusers. The events she covers--and the stories she hears--will change herlife forever. Written in Kim Echlin's masterfully luminescent prose, Speak, Silence weaves together the experiences of a resilient sisterhood and tells the story of the real-life trial that would come to shape history. In a heart-wrenching tale of suffering and loss and a beautiful illustration of power and love, Echlin explores what it means to speak out against the very people who would do anything to silence you.

A fiercely beautiful love story for the ages, The Disappeared traces one woman's three-decades-long journey from the peaceful streets of Montreal to the war-torn villages of Cambodia, as a brief affair turns into a grand passion of loss and remembrance, set against one of the most brutal genocides of our time. When sixteen-year-old Anne Greves first meets Serey, a Cambodian student forced to leave his country during the rise of the Khmer Rouge, she never considers the consequences of their complicated romance. Swept up in the infatuation of young love, Anne ignores her father's wishes and embraces her relationship with Serey in Montreal's smoky jazz clubs and in his cramped yellow bedroom. But when the borders of Cambodia are reopened, Serey must risk his life to return home in search of his family. A decade later, Anne will travel halfway around the world to find him, and to save their love from the same tragic forces that first brought them together. In aching, tender prose, Kim Echlin challenges our notions of how to both claim the past of move on after insufferable loss. Part elegy, part love letter, part call to arms, The Disappeared is a soaring tribute to those who have disappeared in the violent conflicts throughout history.