{"product_id":"revival-isbn-9780771067631","title":"Revival","description":"The success of George Elliott Clarke’s anthology \u003ci\u003eEyeing the North Star: Directions in African-Canadian Literature\u003c\/i\u003e, published a decade ago, demonstrated the growing interest in black Canadian writing. In this exciting, provocative new collection, literary journalist Donna Bailey Nurse provides an up-to-date and fresh perspective on this vibrant, significant, and thriving literature. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawing on fiction, poetry, and memoir, this anthology brings together an impressively varied selection of outstanding work by both well-known writers and new voices. Donna Bailey Nurse’s lively and invaluable introduction deftly explores the various themes and motifs that define and illuminate the meaning of being black, while tracing the evolution of this influential literature through colonialism, post-colonialism, and decolonization. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis engaging collection celebrates a body of writing that holds an increasingly visible and important place within Canadian literature, and stands among the finest literary anthologies in the country.\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIntroduction\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e by\u003c\/i\u003e Donna Bailey Nurse\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eClaire Harris (b. 1937)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUntitled  \u003cbr\u003eTravelling to Find a Remedy  \u003cbr\u003eTowards the Colour of Summer  \u003cbr\u003eKay in Summer  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eÉmile Ollivier (1940-2002)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom\u003c\/i\u003e Mother Solitude  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOlive Senior (b. 1941)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDo Angels Wear Brassieres?  \u003cbr\u003eMeditation on Yellow  \u003cbr\u003eThe Pull of Birds  \u003cbr\u003eThirteen Ways of Looking at Blackbird  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePamela Mordecai (b. 1942)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePoems Grow  \u003cbr\u003eConvent Girl  \u003cbr\u003eThe Angel in the House  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlthea Prince (b. 1945)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom \u003c\/i\u003eLoving This Man  \u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLorna Goodison (b. 1947)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat We Carried That Carried Us  \u003cbr\u003eNever Expect  \u003cbr\u003eQuestions for Marcus Mosiah Garvey   \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom \u003c\/i\u003eFrom Harvey River: A Memoir  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRachel Manley (b. 1947)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom\u003c\/i\u003e Drumblair: Memories of a Jamaican Childhood  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eM. NourbeSe Philip (b. 1947)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSalmon Courage  \u003cbr\u003eMeditations on the Declension of Beauty by the Girl with the Flying Cheek-bones  \u003cbr\u003eThe Catechist  \u003cbr\u003eCashew #4  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eH. Nigel Thomas (b. 1947)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow Loud Can the Village Cock Crow?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHonor Ford-Smith (b. 1951\u003c\/b\u003e)\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom \u003c\/i\u003eMy Mother’s Last Dance  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDany Laferrière (b. 1953)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom \u003c\/i\u003eHow to Make Love to a Negro  \u003ci\u003e \u003cbr\u003efrom \u003c\/i\u003eAn Aroma of Coffee  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOkey Chigbo (b. 1955)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Housegirl  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMakeda Silvera (b. 1955)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom \u003c\/i\u003eThe Heart Does Not Bend  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAndré Alexis (b. 1957)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom \u003c\/i\u003eChildhood  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAfua Cooper (b. 1957)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOn the Way to Sunday School  \u003cbr\u003eMemories Have Tongue  \u003cbr\u003eChristopher Columbus  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLawrence Hill (b. 1957)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom \u003c\/i\u003eAny Known Blood  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTessa McWatt (b. 1959)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom \u003c\/i\u003eDragons Cry  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eGeorge Elliott Clarke (b. 1960)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Wisdom of Shelley  \u003cbr\u003eKing Bee Blues  \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom\u003c\/i\u003e George \u0026amp; Rue  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNalo Hopkinson (b. 1960)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom \u003c\/i\u003eMidnight Robber  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDavid N. Odhiambo (b. 1965)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom\u003c\/i\u003e Kipligat’s Chance \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSuzette Mayr (b. 1967)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom \u003c\/i\u003eThe Widows  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRobert Edison Sandiford (b. 1968)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom \u003c\/i\u003eSand for Snow: A Caribbean-Canadian Chronicle  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eKen Wiwa (b. 1968)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom the Preface to\u003c\/i\u003e In the Shadow of a Saint: A Son’s Journey to Understand His Father’s Legacy  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eShane Book (b. 1970)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHNIC  \u003cbr\u003eThe One\u003cbr\u003eFlagelliform: #9  \u003cbr\u003eFlagelliform: Fact  \u003cbr\u003eFlagelliform: Ayahuasca   \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eMotion (b. 1970)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eGirl  \u003cbr\u003eI-Land  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWayde Compton (b. 1972)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLegba, Landed  \u003cbr\u003eDeclaration of the Halfrican Nation  \u003cbr\u003eTo Poitier  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eKim Barry Brunhuber (b. 1973)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom \u003c\/i\u003eKameleon Man  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJemeni (b. 1974)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Black Speaker  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eEsi Edugyan (b. 1977)\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003efrom \u003c\/i\u003eThe Second Life of Samuel Tyne  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAbout the Authors\u003cbr\u003eSuggested Reading \u003cbr\u003eA Note on the Text and Acknowledgements\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eDonna Bailey Nurse\u003c\/b\u003e is a literary journalist, a lecturer, a critic for \u003ci\u003eBookTelevision\u003c\/i\u003e, and the author of \u003ci\u003eWhat’s a Black Critic to Do?: Interviews, Profiles and Reviews of Black Writers\u003c\/i\u003e. She is a frequent book reviewer for the \u003ci\u003eGlobe and Mail\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eNational Post\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eToronto Star\u003c\/i\u003e, and the \u003ci\u003eMontreal Gazette\u003c\/i\u003e, and her articles exploring race and culture have appeared in these publications as well as in \u003ci\u003eMaclean’s\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003ePublishers Weekly\u003c\/i\u003e, the \u003ci\u003eWashington Post\u003c\/i\u003e, and the \u003ci\u003eBoston Globe\u003c\/i\u003e. She lives in Toronto.\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eIntroduction \u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/i\u003eI grew up on the elbow of land between Lake Ontario and French­man’s Bay, surrounded by Pickering’s towering blue spruce and pungent wetlands. We played in fields of ruined farmhouses during summers as green and perpetual as the Caribbean Sea. In winter, the sky was white and still, like the land itself. The schoolyard was a snowy desert, and bundled thick as snowmen, my sister and I sank through to our knees. At home, Miss Iris, our Jamaican grandma, fixed us Ovaltine, then sat with her sisters in the back room, mending clothes and talking “big people business,” while a pot of pigs’ tail sputtered on the stove. I curled up on the sofa with Lucy Maud and Laura Ingalls and wondered, What did Katy do? But outside, brown skin was harder to negotiate than snowdrifts. You had to play dumb. A little girl asked: “Are you a ghost?” But she was the one who was white. I was a little girl too, but I knew that much. Skin colour was no big deal, until suddenly, without warning, it was. The ambush comment or question, the backhanded compliment, the acts of emotional violence meant to remind me of what I was not, which was not white and not from here. They were right and wrong. I’m not white but I am from here. Black and Canadian: equal parts race and place.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eLiterature has been the means through which I have learned to understand who I am and who I might be — as a human being, as a woman, and as a person of African descent. Over the years, my experience reading, studying, and writing about black Canadian letters, most recently as a literary critic, has served to reaffirm my identity as a Canadian. I became a critic of black Canadian literature largely because I wanted to engage others in a dialogue about black writing in this country, and it was important to me that the dialogue be led by somebody who was black. This literature is at the forefront of public and artistic spaces grappling with what it means to be of this race and of this place, and as such, it represents a crucial voice in the necessary conversation about the black experience in Canada. \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRevival\u003c\/i\u003e constitutes a conversation about the relevance of black Canadian writing like no other, and celebrates the coming of age of a black Canadian literature. It builds proudly upon previous anthologies that confirmed the existence of a growing body of black Canadian writing, including Lorris Elliott’s \u003ci\u003eOther Voices: Writings by Blacks in Canada\u003c\/i\u003e (1985), Cyril Dabydeen’s \u003ci\u003eA Shapely Fire: Changing the Literary Landscape\u003c\/i\u003e (1987), Ayanna Black’s \u003ci\u003eVoices: Canadian Writers of African Descent\u003c\/i\u003e (1992), and George Elliott Clarke’s \u003ci\u003eEyeing the North Star: Directions in African-Canadian Literature \u003c\/i\u003e(1997). \u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\u003cbr\u003eEyeing the North Star\u003c\/i\u003e marked a pivotal moment in the development of a black Canadian literature. It reaffirmed the importance of such established figures as Austin Clarke, M. NourbeSe Philip, and Claire Harris, while showcasing newer voices, including Lawrence Hill, André Alexis, and David N. Odhiambo. In his introduction, George Elliott Clarke addressed the characteristics of a black Canadian aesthetic; he defined it as “international” in its “concern for African people everywhere,” in its “solidarity with third world peoples,” and in its “utilization of a diverse range of rhetorical styles.” Agreeing with writer Liz Cromwell, Clarke describes the literature as concerned with a history of forced relocation, coerced labour, and the struggle against discrimination.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe publication of Clarke’s anthology in 1997 was also significant for its timing and as an indication of the growing interest in black Canadian writing. Beginning in the mid-nineties, the literature began to accumulate critical mass. The ensuing decade would see the publication of award-winning works of fiction (including André Alexis’s \u003ci\u003eChildhood\u003c\/i\u003e, Austin Clarke’s \u003ci\u003eThe Polished Hoe\u003c\/i\u003e, and Nalo Hopkinson’s \u003ci\u003eBrown Girl in the Ring\u003c\/i\u003e), memoir (Rachel Manley’s \u003ci\u003eDrumblair\u003c\/i\u003e and Ken Wiwa’s \u003ci\u003eIn the Shadow of a Saint\u003c\/i\u003e); drama (Djanet Sears’s \u003ci\u003eHarlem Duet\u003c\/i\u003e), and poetry (Dionne Brand’s \u003ci\u003eLand to Light On\u003c\/i\u003e). \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBlack Canadian writing has come of age over the last decade, and the time now seems right for a reconsideration of this increasingly influential literature. With twenty-nine contributors and over fifty pieces drawn from works of fiction, poetry, and memoir,\u003ci\u003e Revival \u003c\/i\u003eprovides a varied overview of contemporary black Canadian literature. Previous anthologies have confirmed the diversity of black Canada’s literary voices, and \u003ci\u003eRevival \u003c\/i\u003eacknowledges this multiplicity, with contributors originally from Africa and the Caribbean, as well as several born in Canada. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe astonishing gifts of the newer voices in the anthology merit extra mention. Poets Wayde Compton and Shane Book and novelists Esi Edugyan and Kim Barry Brunhuber assimilate and alchemize a wealth of literary influences to produce original and distinct individual styles. In addition, \u003ci\u003eRevival\u003c\/i\u003e is the first Canadian anthology to feature Okey Chigbo, whose work has appeared in Chinua Achebe and Lynn Innes’s influential \u003ci\u003eContemporary African Short Stories\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFor me, the seeds of contemporary black Canadian literature were sown in the mid-sixties with the novels of Austin Clarke. Clarke’s early success had partly to do with the time and place in which he launched his career. Beginning in the mid-fifties, when Clarke arrived in Canada to attend the University of Toronto, the Canadian government began opening the doors to Caribbean immigrants through student visas and through programs such as the Caribbean Domestic Scheme, which saw thousands of women enter the country to work as nannies and maids. At the same time, the civil rights movement in the United States, with its attendant turmoil, attuned Canadians to issues of race and racism. Just as important was Toronto’s burgeoning creative scene. Clarke belonged to a number of artistic circles, among them a group of Toronto writers that included Barry Callaghan and Margaret Atwood, who were nurturing a vision of a homegrown literature. The proximity of major publishing houses also meant he had access to people who might publish his work.","brand":"McClelland \u0026 Stewart","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302309777637,"sku":"NP9780771067631","price":21.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780771067631.jpg?v=1767735712","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/revival-isbn-9780771067631","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}