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Living My Best Life, Hun: Following Your Dreams Is No Joke
Par London Hughes. 2023
From stand-up comedian, actress, and host of The Netflix Afterparty, London Hughes, comes an uplifting and raucously funny memoir to show you how to…
ditch the self-loathing, start the self-loving, and engage with your inner winner. London Hughes has come a long way from secretly writing Frasier fan fiction alone in her bedroom. Between her breakout Netflix comedy special, To Catch a D*ck, her dating podcast &“London, Actually,&” and her award-winning TV performances, London the South Londoner has taken the entertainment world by storm. And now, in this sassy, brash, fearless, and funny memoir, London is ready to inspire women of all ages and races with her story—because London is absolutely the best person in the whole wide world to take you on a wild journey of self-discovery. As she herself puts it: &“I&’ve always been funny. I&’ve always been cute. I&’ve always been confident. I was born to do this shit.&” All her life, London longed to be a badass—an awesome bullet-proof woman who nobody could mess with. At a young age, she made sure she was ready to become a star, developing her own living-room popstar training regimen to prepare for her future life. But London also had her fair share of disastrous experiences in terms of friendships, relationships, and career choices. Each of the fiascos in London&’s life has, with hindsight, proved to be a formative life lesson, and helped her grow into the fearless person she is today. You'll definitely be grateful these setbacks happened to her and not you, but you'll also learn that however bad things get, you can always build your self-worth, think long-term, and emerge triumphant, no matter what the world throws at you. From starring in a school sex education video called &“Swings and Roundabouts&” to being gushed over by a fan while standing next to the Renee Zellweger, London leaves no stone unturned in Living My Best Life, Hun. It took London some time to find her voice and her people, but now that she has, she's mentally high-fiving her 14-year-old self every day.Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, and Me
Par Bernie Taupin. 2023
**NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER** An evocative, clear-eyed, and revealing memoir by Bernie Taupin, the lyrical master and long-time collaborator of…
Elton John&“I loved writing, I loved chronicling life and every moment I was cogent, sober, or blitzed, I was forever feeding off my surroundings, making copious notes as ammunition for future compositions. . . . The thing is good, bad, or indifferent I never stopped writing, it was as addictive as any drug.&” This is the memoir music fans have been waiting for. Half of one of the greatest creative partnerships in popular music, Bernie Taupin is the man who wrote the lyrics for Elton John, who conceived the ideas that spawned countless hits, and sold millions and millions of records. Together, they were a duo, a unit, an immovable object. Their extraordinary, half-century-and-counting creative relationship has been chronicled in biopics (like 2019's Rocketman) and even John's own autobiography, Me. But Taupin, a famously private person, has kept his own account of their adventures close to his chest, until now. Written with honesty and candor, Scattershot allows the reader to witness events unfolding from Taupin's singular perspective, sometimes front and center, sometimes from the edge, yet always described vibrantly, with an infectious energy that only a vivid songwriter's prose could offer. From his childhood in the East Midlands of England whose imagination was sparked and forever informed by the distinctly American mythopoetics of country music and cowboy culture, to the glittering, star-studded fishbowl of &’70s and &’80s Beverly Hills, Scattershot is simultaneously a Tom Jones-like picaresque journey across a landscape of unforgettable characters, as well as a striking, first-hand account of a creative era like no other and one man&’s experience at the core of it. An exciting, multi-decade whirlwind told in a non-linear yet grounded narrative, Scattershot whizzes around the world as we ride shotgun with Bernie on his extraordinary life. We visit Los Angeles with him and Elton on the cusp of global fame. We spend time with him in Australia almost in residency at an infamous rock 'n' roll hotel in an endless blizzard of drugs. And we spend late, late night hours with John Lennon, with Bob Marley, and hanging with Frank Sinatra. And beyond the world of popular music, we witness memorable encounters with writers like Graham Greene, painters like Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, and scores of notable misfits, miscreants, eccentrics, and geniuses, known and unknown. Even if they're not famous in their own right, they are stars on the page, and we discover how they inspired the indelible lyrics to songs such as &“Tiny Dancer,&” &“Candle in the Wind,&” &“Bennie and The Jets,&” and so many more. Unique and utterly compelling, Scattershot will transport the reader across the decades and around the globe, along the way meeting some of the greatest creative minds of the 20th century, and into the vivid imaginings of one of music's most legendary lyricists.Tell It Like It Is: My Story
Par Aaron Neville. 2023
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2023 BY BEST CLASSIC BANDS For the first time, legendary singer and songwriter and Grammy…
Hall-of-Famer Aaron Neville tells his personal story of overcoming poverty, racism, addiction, and loss through faith, family, and music. Aaron Neville&’s first #1 hit, &“Tell It Like it Is,&” was released in 1966. In the mid-70s he formed the Neville Brothers with Art, Charles, and Cyril—now known as the &“First Family of New Orleans&”—and they released more than a dozen influential albums. Given his one-of-a-kind, soaring falsetto, Aaron was the breakout star, and over the next six decades, he had four platinum albums, three #1 songs, numerous film and television appearances, and was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2014. His triple-platinum duets with Linda Ronstadt (including the Grammy-Award-winning hit &“I Don&’t Know Much&”) showcased the softer side of his voice, and the smoking hot funky soul of the Neville Brothers cemented his legacy as an R&B legend. But few people know the challenging and circuitous road Aaron took to fame. Born in a housing project in New Orleans of Black and Native American heritage, Aaron struggled as a teenage father working to raise a family while building his career as a musician, surviving a stint in jail for car theft and many years battling heroin addiction. Recognized by the dagger tattoo on his cheek and his St. Jude medallion earring, Neville credits St. Jude—the patron saint of lost cases—for turning his life around. He found healing and salvation in music. Aaron Neville is a man who by all accounts should not have made it. Tell It Like It Is shares his story for the first time.Data Baby: My Life in a Psychological Experiment
Par Susannah Breslin. 2023
A Belletrist Book Pick for December 2023Lab Girl meets Brain on Fire in this provocative and poignant memoir delving into a woman's formative…
experiences as a veritable "lab rat" in a lifelong psychological study, and her pursuit to reclaim autonomy and her identity as a adult. What if your parents turn you into a human lab rat when you&’re a child? Will that change the story of your life? Will that change who you are? When Susannah Breslin is a toddler, her parents enroll her in an exclusive laboratory preschool at the University of California, Berkeley, where she becomes one of over a hundred children who are research subjects in an unprecedented thirty-year study of personality development that predicts who she and her cohort will grow up to be. Decades later, trapped in what she feels is an abusive marriage and battling breast cancer, she starts to wonder how growing up under a microscope shaped her identity and life choices. Already a successful journalist, she makes her own curious history the subject of her next investigation. From experiment rooms with one-way mirrors, to children&’s puzzles with no solutions, to condemned basement laboratories, her life-changing journey uncovers the long-buried secrets hidden behind the renowned study. The question at the gnarled heart of her quest: Did the study know her better than she knew herself? At once bravely honest and sharply witty, Data Baby is a compelling and provocative account of a woman&’s quest to find her true self, and an unblinking exploration of why we turn out as we do. Few people in all of history have been studied from such a young age and for as long as this author, but the message of her book is universal. In an era when so many of us are looking to technology to tell us who to be, it&’s up to us to discover who we actually are.Finding Baby Holly: Lost to a Cult, Surviving My Parents' Murders, and Saved by Prayer
Par Holly Marie. 2023
Holly Marie was forty-two years old the day she found out she was missing. At ten months old, Holly…
Marie was brought to the door of a church by three barefoot women in white robes and head coverings. Adopted by the pastor and raised in a loving Christian home, Holly nevertheless struggled with the ache of not knowing what had happened to her biological parents. She still felt their absence even as she married and started a family of her own. When two detectives showed up at the restaurant where she worked and informed her that she had a large family in Florida who had been searching for her for over 40 years, Holly&’s past became the reality of her present, and she began the sometimes painful journey of discovering the truth about her origins: Her parents had been brutally murdered, their case still unsolved. With the help of law enforcement across four states, forensic genealogists, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and her newly discovered family members, the missing pieces began to come together. Except these—why had her parents been murdered? And who had murdered them? She soon found out that the truth leads not always to answers but sometimes to more questions, that it also brings healing and restoration, and that we must surrender our unknowns to God until, in His perfect timing, all truths are revealed. Finding Baby Holly is the true, inspiring story of a wife and mother who was &“missing&” for over forty years after her parents&’ murders, the persistent detectives who never stopped investigating, and the birth family who never lost hope in finding her.Part memoir, part inspirational, Jeff Deel&’s From These Roots tells of his sometimes michievous childhood as the son of a…
holiness preacher and the change of heart and events that led him as an adult to work alongside his brother, ministering to the lost and forgotten people of Atlanta&’s inner city.Through Jeff&’s stories from his own past, along with those of the countless transformations he has witnessed at City of Refuge, readers will see how being a follower can be just as important as being a leader. Jeff Deel has lived in the shadow of his older brother, Bruce, for his entire life. He wouldn&’t have had it any other way. While being the sons of a holiness preacher, they still found ways to get into their fair share of mischief, with older brother Bruce taking on the role of &“leader&”—for better or worse. Yet Jeff never questioned his place as his brother&’s follower and supporter—for better or worse. Then came adulthood and Jeff&’s turbulent search to find himself. Through a series of failed occupations and the desire to avoid ministry at all costs, Jeff was predictably led right back to his brother&’s side. This time, instead of finding mischief, Jeff and Bruce worked together building the City of Refuge in Atlanta. Through their work, COR has welcomed thousands upon thousands of individuals who have found themselves in dire straits, whether as victims of abuse and sex trafficking, or as people whose own choices have thrust them to rock bottom. Jeff and Bruce have found their experience watching their parents minister to the least of these and teaching them what it means to offer a person dignity, love, and hope, prepared them more than they ever could have realized.Troubled: A Memoir of Foster Care, Family, and Social Class
Par Rob Henderson. 2024
In this raw coming-of-age memoir, in the vein of The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace, The Other Wes…
Moore, and Someone Has Led This Child to Believe, Rob Henderson vividly recounts growing up in foster care, enlisting in the US Air Force, attending elite universities, and pioneering the concept of &“luxury beliefs&”—ideas and opinions that confer status on the upper class while inflicting costs on the less fortunate.Rob Henderson was born to a drug-addicted mother and a father he never met, ultimately shuttling between ten different foster homes in California. When he was adopted into a loving family, he hoped that life would finally be stable and safe. Divorce, tragedy, poverty, and violence marked his adolescent and teen years, propelling Henderson to join the military upon completing high school. An unflinching portrait of shattered families, desperation, and determination, Troubled recounts Henderson&’s expectation-defying young life and juxtaposes his story with those of his friends who wound up incarcerated or killed. He retreads the steps and missteps he took to escape the drama and disorder of his youth. As he navigates the peaks and valleys of social class, Henderson finds that he remains on the outside looking in. His greatest achievements—a military career, an undergraduate education from Yale, a PhD from Cambridge—feel like hollow measures of success. He argues that stability at home is more important than external accomplishments, and he illustrates the ways the most privileged among us benefit from a set of social standards that actively harm the most vulnerable.Everything I Couldn't Tell You
Par Jeff D'Hondt. 2024
Revived from a coma after a traumatic event, Megan’s injuries leave her capable of great violence, forcing her desperate physician…
Cassandra to recruit Alison, an Indigenous clinician, as her consultant. Alison uses an innovative form of technologically enhanced expressive arts therapy to augment the rehabilitative effects of speaking Lenape, their shared (and almost extinct) language. However, this reminder of cultural expression and identity triggers Megan, putting herself into a life-threatening situation. With Megan’s safety in jeopardy, Alison must internalize a life-changing lesson to save her: pain is often unjust, but it also reminds us that we’re alive.Everything I Couldn’t Tell You is a potent reminder of the healing and rehabilitative power within Indigenous languages.My Brother, My Land: A Story from Palestine
Par Sami Hermez. 2024
A riveting and unapologetic account of Palestinian resistance, the story of one family's care for their land, and a reflection…
on love and heartache while living under military occupation. In 1967, Sireen Sawalha's mother, with her young children, walked back to Palestine against the traffic of exile. My Brother, My Land is the story of Sireen's family in the decades that followed and their lives in the Palestinian village of Kufr Ra'i. From Sireen's early life growing up in the shadow of the '67 War and her family's work as farmers caring for their land, to the involvement of her brother Iyad in armed resistance in the First and Second Intifada, Sami Hermez, with Sireen Sawalha, crafts a rich story of intertwining voices, mixing genres of oral history, memoir, and creative nonfiction. Through the lives of the Sawalha family, and the story of Iyad's involvement in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hermez confronts readers with the politics and complexities of armed resistance and the ethical tensions and contradictions that arise, as well as with the dispossession and suffocation of people living under occupation and their ordinary lives in such times. Whether this story leaves readers discomforted, angry, or empowered, they will certainly emerge with a deeper understanding of the Palestinian predicament.The Forgotten Peace: Mediation at Niagara Falls (Governance Series)
Par Michael Small. 2009
In the early hours of April 22, 1914, American President Woodrow Wilson sent Marines to seize the port of Veracruz…
in an attempt to alter the course of the Mexican Revolution. As a result, the United States seemed on the brink of war with Mexico. An international uproar ensued. The governments of Argentina, Brazil, and Chile offered to mediate a peaceful resolution to the crisis. Surprisingly, both the United States and Mexico accepted their offer and all parties agreed to meet at an international peace conference in Niagara Falls, Ontario. For Canadians, the conference provided an unexpected spectacle on their doorstep, combining high diplomacy and low intrigue around the gardens and cataracts of Canada's most famous natural attraction. For the diplomats involved, it proved to be an ephemeral high point in the nascent pan-American movement. After it ended, the conference dropped out of historical memory. This is the first full account of the Niagara Falls Peace Conference to be published in North America since 1914. The author carefully reconstructs what happened at Niagara Falls, examining its historical significance for Canada's relationship with the Americas. From this almost forgotten event he draws important lessons on the conduct of international mediation and the perils of middle-power diplomacy.Tours et détours: Le mythe de Babel dans la littérature contemporaine
Par Catherine Khordoc. 2012
Tours et détours examine l’inscription du mythe de Babel dans la littérature contemporaine de langue française. Le mythe s’avère une…
source d’inspiration pour les auteurs examinés qui évoquent justement des phénomènes sociaux actuels, tels que le multiculturalisme, l’immigration, l’exil, la pluralité des langues, la traduction et l’identité. Les ouvrages étudiés, tous écrits en français mais issus de différents contextes linguistiques et culturels, mettent en lumière de nouvelles interprétations du mythe de Babel. Pendant longtemps le mythe de Babel et la pluralité linguistique et culturelle qui s’ensuivent ont été considérés une malédiction pour l’humanité, mais les romans à l’étude remettent en question cette vision négative. Sans exalter les bienfaits de la multiplicité, ils considèrent comment la pluralité linguistique et culturelle enrichit et façonne la production littéraire ainsi que le monde contemporain. Les auteurs et œuvres étudiés sont • Monique Bosco, Babel-Opéra • Hédi Bouraoui, Ainsi parle la tour CN • Francine Noël, Babel, prise deux ou Nous avons tous découvert l’Amérique • Ernest Pépin, Tambour-Babel • Jorge Semprun, L’AlgarabieDouble-Voicing the Canadian Short Story (Canadian Literature Collection)
Par Laurie Kruk. 2016
Double-Voicing the Canadian Short Story is the first comparative study of eight internationally and nationally acclaimed writers of short fiction:…
Sandra Birdsell, Timothy Findley, Jack Hodgins, Thomas King, Alistair MacLeod, Olive Senior, Carol Shields and Guy Vanderhaeghe. With the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature going to Alice Munro, the “master of the contemporary short story,” this art form is receiving the recognition that has been its due and—as this book demonstrates—Canadian writers have long excelled in it. From theme to choice of narrative perspective, from emphasis on irony, satire and parody to uncovering the multiple layers that make up contemporary Canadian English, the short story provides a powerful vehicle for a distinctively Canadian “double-voicing”. The stories discussed here are compelling reflections on our most intimate roles and relationships and Kruk offers a thoughtful juxtaposition of themes of gender, mothers and sons, family storytelling, otherness in Canada and the politics of identity to name but a few. As a multi-author study, Double-Voicing the Canadian Short Story is broad in scope and its readings are valuable to Canadian literature as a whole, making the book of interest to students of Canadian literature or the short story, and to readers of both.Les écritures noires du Canada: L'Atlantique noir et la présence du passé (Études canadiennes)
Par Winfried Siemerling. 2021
The Black Atlantic Reconsidered is the first comprehensive work to explore Black Canadian literature from its beginnings to the present…
in the broader context of the Black Atlantic world. Winfried Siemerling traces the evolution of black Canadian witnessing and writing from slave testimony in New France and the 1783 "Book of Negroes" through the work of contemporary black Canadian writers including Austin Clarke, George Elliott Clarke, Dionne Brand, Wayde Compton, and Esi Edugyan.Arguing that Black writing in Canada is deeply imbricated in a historic transnational network, Winfried Siemerling explores the powerful presence of Black Canadian history, slavery, the Underground Railroad, and the Black diaspora in the work of contemporary Black Canadian writers.Individual chapters examine the literature that has emerged from Quebec, Nova Scotia, the Prairies, and British Columbia, with attention to writing in both English and French.Les littératures franco-canadiennes à l’épreuve du temps (Archives des lettres canadiennes)
Par Marie Carrière, Grégoire Holtz, Kathleen Kellett, Louise Ladouceur, Jean Morency, Pamela Sing, Jimmy Thibault, Emmanuelle Tremblay. 2017
Finaliste, Prix du Canada 2018, Fédération des sciences humaines « Les littératures de l’exiguïté, dont font partie les ensembles littéraires…
franco-canadiens, restent fascinées par les sémantiques de l’espace. Elles en oublient leur longue histoire et renoncent, par là, aux riches taxonomies liées au passé collectif et à la mémoire, tant elles s’entêtent à coïncider avec les territoires imaginés, géographiques et identitaires, où elles s’inscrivent. » Lucie Hotte et François Paré ont réuni des études qui témoignent du dynamisme de l’activité littéraire franco-canadienne marquée par l’histoire, mais aussi représentative de l’image que chacune des collectivités se fait d’elle-même et de son avenir. Les œuvres analysées illustrent la recherche esthétique d’une grande originalité, menée par les écrivains franco-canadiens dans des conditions souvent difficiles sur le plan des institutions littéraires et des moyens de publication ou de diffusion. Cet ouvrage réunit les textes de Marie Carrière, Jeanette den Toonder, Grégoire Holtz, Lucie Hotte, Kathleen Kellett, Louise Ladouceur, Jean Morency, François Paré, Pamela V. Sing, Jimmy Thibeault et Emmanuelle Tremblay. En somme, une multiplicité de regards et une synthèse unique sur la francophonie canadienne durant plus de quatre siècles d’écriture. Une coédition avec le Centre de recherche en civilisation canadienne-française.L’avenir du passé: Identité, mémoire et récits de la jeunesse québécoise et franco-ontarienne (Amérique française)
Par Stéphane Lévesque, Jean-Philippe Croteau. 2020
L’avenir du passé présente les résultats d’une vaste enquête sur la mémoire et la conscience historique du Canada français au…
sein de la jeunesse francophone du Québec et de l’Ontario. L’enquête soulève la question du rapport que des jeunes milléniaux entretiennent avec le passé des francophones au pays et se dotent d’une vision narrative pour orienter leur vie de citoyen et de membre d’une communauté d’appartenance. Plus de 600 récits forment un corpus original qui met en perspective les résultats obtenus au sein de chaque groupe. L’enquête permet de valider le postulat selon lequel les participants de ces deux provinces partagent un récit commun de l’histoire nationale et s’identifient aux mêmes communautés d’appartenance. L’ouvrage nous entraine également au cœur d’une vaste réflexion sur la transmission de l’histoire nationale chez les jeunes en contexte francophone canadien. Quelle place devrait occuper les enquêtes comme celle-ci dans l’éducation historique des jeunes ? Comment l’école peut-elle favoriser la construction d’une conscience historique plus réfléchie et l’élaboration de narrations plus complexes, actualisées, et ouvertes aux réalités multiples de notre monde ? Publié en français.Cahiers Charlevoix 13: Études franco-ontariennes (Cahiers Charlevoix #13)
Par Jean-Pierre Pichette, Michel Bock, Marcel Bénéteau, Simon Laflamme, Yves Frenette, Julie Boissonneault, Ali Reguigui. 2020
Fondée à Sudbury en 1992, la Société Charlevoix est un regroupement d’universitaires qui se consacrent à des travaux savants sur…
l’Ontario français. Par son nom, la Société honore la mémoire du jésuite Pierre-François-Xavier de Charlevoix (1682-1761), qui a laissé des observations remarquables sur le territoire ontarien. Limités en tout temps à dix en nombre, ses membres examinent les réalités franco-ontariennes selon les perspectives variées qu’apportent leurs disciplines. Leur élection se fait par cooptation, à l’unanimité des voix. Depuis 1995, la Société Charlevoix publie les Cahiers Charlevoix. Études franco-ontariennes, un collectif exclusivement dévolu à la diffusion des travaux de ses membres. Depuis leur création, nos Cahiers Charlevoix n’ont jamais comporté plus de six essais. La présente livraison, la treizième de la série, en compte sept : précédant les six études courantes de 2020, l’hommage rendu à un membre émérite disparu, Gaétan Gervais, commandait cette première. Publiée sous le patronage de la Société Charlevoix, l’édition de ce treizième Cahier Charlevoix est le fruit d’une entente entre la Société Charlevoix et les Presses de l’Université d’Ottawa. Ce livre est publié en français.The 1940 Under the Volcano: A Critical Edition (Canadian Literature Collection)
Par Malcolm Lowry. 2015
The 1940 Under the Volcano—hidden for too long in the shadows of Lowry’s 1947 masterpiece—differs from the latter in significant…
ways. It is a bridge between Lowry’s 1930s fiction (especially In Ballast to the White Sea) and the 1947 Under the Volcano itself. Joining the recently published Swinging the Maelstrom and In Ballast to the White Sea, The 1940 Under the Volcano takes its rightful place as part of Lowry’s exciting 1930s/early-40s trilogy. Scholars have only recently begun to pay systematic attention to convergences and divergences between this earlier work and the 1947 version. Miguel Mota and Paul Tiessen’s insightful introduction, together with extensive annotations by Chris Ackerley and David Large, reveal the depth and breadth of Lowry’s complex vision for his work. This critical edition fleshes out our sense of the enormous achievement by this twentieth-century modernist.Publié en anglais.La famille Fermanian: L’histoire du cinéma Pine de Sainte-Adèle (Biographies et mémoires #9)
Par Stéphane Desjardins. 2022
In 1948, penniless immigrant Philip Fermanian opened the Cinema Pine in Saint-Adèle, a movie theatre that would hold a unique…
place in the North American film industry. In this book, author Stéphane Desjardins tells the story of the Fermanian family, whose patriarch left Turkey during the Armenian genocide of the 1920s and settled in the Pays-d’en-Haut, where he hoped to farm the land. Stuck with a rocky plot of land, the Fermanians had to earn a living by the sweat of their brow and reinvented themselves by selling produce. The story takes an unexpected turn when a young woman from Saint-Adèle named Aurore (you cannot make this stuff up), accepts to marry Philip Fermanian on one condition: he will open a movie theatre. Their union produces two sons, only one of whom, Tom, will survive. Tom grows up in the family apartment above the movie theatre, his childhood resembling that of the Salvatore character in the film Cinema Paradiso. The Fermanians’ story evokes various important events in Saint-Adèle’s history, and the author’s references to the films shown at The Pine are a nod to the film industry and its stars.A Journey in Translation: Anne Hébert's Poetry in English (Canadian Literature Collection)
Par Lee Skallerup Bessette. 2016
This book traces the remarkable journey of Hébert’s shifting authorial identity as versions of her work traveled through complex and…
contested linguistic and national terrain from the late 1950s until today. At the center of this exploration of Hébert’s work are the people who were inspired by her poetry to translate and more widely disseminate her poems to a wider audience. Exactly how did this one woman’s work travel so much farther than the vast majority of Québécois authors? Though the haunting quality of her art partly explains her wide appeal, her work would have never traveled so far without the effort of scores of passionately committed translators, editors, and archivists. Though the work of such “middle men” is seldom recognized, much less scrutinized as a factor in shaping the meaning and reach of an artist, in Herbert’s case, the process of translating Hébert’s poetry has left in its wake a number of archival and other paratextual resources that chronicle the individual acts of translation and their reception. Though the impact of translation, editions, and archival work has been largely ignored in studies of Canadian literary history, the treasure trove of such paratextual records in Hébert’s case allows us to better understand the reach of her work. More importantly, it provides insight into and raises critical questions about the textually mediated process of nation-building and literary canon formation.My Life
Par Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya. 2010
The Modern Language Association (MLA) awarded the Lois Roth Award to John Woodsworth and Arkadi Klioutchanski of the University of…
Ottawa’s Slavic Research Group for their translation of Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya’s My Life memoirs. My Life was selected among the top 100 non-fiction works of 2010 by The Globe and Mail. It has also won an honourable mention in the Biography and Autobiography category of the 2010 American Publishers Awards for the Professional and Scholarly Excellence (PROSE) awards. And, finally, it made it into the Association of American University Presses' 2011 Book, Jacket and Journal Show. One hundred years after his death, Leo Tolstoy continues to be regarded as one of the world’s most accomplished writers. Historically, little attention has been paid to his wife Sofia Andreevna Tolstaya. Acting in the capacity of literary assistant, translator, transcriber, and editor, she played an important role in the development of her husband’s career. Her memoirs – which she titled My Life – lay dormant for almost a century. Now their first-time-ever appearance in Russia is complemented by an unabridged and annotated English translation. Tolstaya’s story takes us from her childhood through the early years of her marriage, the writing of War and Peace and Anna Karenina and into the first year of the twentieth century. She paints an intimate and honest portrait of her husband’s character, providing new details about his life to which she alone was privy. She offers a better understanding of Tolstoy’s character, his qualities and failings as a husband and a father, and forms a picture of the quintessential Tolstoyan character which underlies his fiction. My Life also reveals that Tolstaya was an accomplished author in her own right—as well as a translator, amateur artist, musician, photographer, and businesswoman—a rarity in the largely male-dominated world of the time. She was actively involved in the relief efforts for the 1891–92 famine and the emigration of the Doukhobors in 1899. She was a prolific correspondent, in touch with many prominent figures in Russian and Western society. Guests in her home ranged from peasants to princes, from anarchists to artists, from composers to philosophers. Her descriptions of these personalities read as a chronicle of the times, affording a unique portrait of late-19th- and early-20th-century Russian society, ranging from peasants to the Tsar himself. My Life is the most important primary document about Tolstoy to be published in many years and a unique and intimate portrait of one of the greatest literary minds of all time.