Kirjahaku

Marian Engel was a writer's writer – an iconoclast, deeply admired and loved by a generation of Canadian authors and critics. Informal gatherings were often held at Engel's Toronto house, and it was there that Engel's many literary friendships were first nurtured, later to blossom through the exchange of numerous and extraordinary letters, which are variously funny, insightful, irreverent, and moving. Engel's lively epistolary practice offers a view of the literary landscape in Canada from 1965 to 1985 as seen through her correspondence with mentor Hugh MacLennan, and friends and colleagues Robertson Davies, Dennis Lee, Margaret Atwood, Timothy Findley, Alice Munro, Margaret Laurence, Matt Cohen, Robert Weaver, and Graeme Gibson, to name but a few. In the spring of 2001, the Marian Engel Archive in Hamilton, Ontario received an exciting and unexpected new installment of Engel correspondence. Marian Engel: Life in Letters is born of that gift. In making their selection, Christl Verduyn and Kathleen Garay have chosen correspondence that specifically captures Engel's life as a writer, a narrative that spans her early youthful travels in Europe to her early death in 1985. In addition to the letters sent to her friends, this startling and important collection includes letters by Engel to critics, to editors, to granting officers, to publishers, and a brilliant letter to a chief librarian lambasting him for, among other pungent criticisms, the library's prejudice against 'Domesticity' amongst other categories. Thoughtfully presented and accompanied by insightful commentary, these letters are rich in their detail, filling in the fine points in the life of not only one Canadian writer, but of a nation of writers.

Controversial, unsettling, shocking. This is the story of a 27-year-old, lonely, woman who, alone on an island, who discovers an obsessive passion--one that breaks an ancient taboo and that could very well become deadly.Lou, a shy and secretive young librarian is called to a remote Canadian island to inventory the estate of the recently deceased Colonel Cary. In a cabin on the island, she discovers the colonel had a secret as well. A bear is chained inside. Fascinated, Lou brings the bear into the house and slowly gains the animal's trust. She sinks her fingers into the bear's fur--and soon realizes her darkest desire is for this large, powerful animal to be her lover. But there's more to the story than the price to be paid for forbidden passion. This novel by award-winning author Marian Engel works within the logic of a fever dream as the young woman comes to an even greater, and unexpected, understanding of herself. Bear was first published in 1976 and won the Canadian Governor General's Award for English-language fiction. The novel has retained its power to shock, disturb, and move readers today.

From the award-winning and bestselling author of Bear, an atmospheric novel set in the Mediterranean where it is discovered that she who travels alone does not necessarily travel best.Originally published in 1973, Monodromos is one of Marian Engel's most accomplished novels -- intensely readable, sensitive, and assured. Its story concerns Audrey Moore, a thirty-six-year-old woman who travels to Cyprus, the island once sacred to Aphrodite. Staying with her estranged husband, a has-been concert pianist, Audrey is troubled by memories of her past as she attempts to fathom the rich cultural confusion of a place that has changed hands a hundred times since Cleopatra presented it to Anthony. Her deepening involvement with island life, with a lover and a circle of expatriates, artists, and doubtful acquaintances, provide many insights, but she also has a sense that this place, for her, is a one-way street -- monodromos in Greek.

First published in 1970, The Honeyman Festival chronicles one night in the life of Minn Burge, a woman in her mid-thirties who is torn between affection for her family and the need for a life in which impulse and intelligence can once again find play.Pregnant with her fourth child, and unable to take refuge in facile resolutions, Minn interrogates her life with a razor-edge passion in which many readers will find they too are involved.This groundbreaking novel by one of Canada’s most beloved novelists is now available in a beautifully packaged A List edition, featuring an introduction by novelist and short story writer Caroline Adderson.