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Cedarbrae Reads 

CBC Books: 6 Canadian Writers to Watch in 2019

2/25/2019

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Repost of CBC Books  Black History Month: 6 Black Canadian Writers to Watch in 2019​ by Ryan B. Patrick.

​In honour of Black History Month, CBC Books is highlighting six Canadian authors of black heritage who are making their mark on the national literature scene. 

Zalika Reid-Benta is a Toronto-based author. (House of Anansi Press)Zalika Reid-Benta is a Toronto-based author. Lauded by George Elliott Clarke as a 'writer to watch', Reid-Benta explores race, identity and culture through the lens of second-generation Caribbean Canadians in her work. The Columbia MFA gradudate's debut novel Frying Plantain is a series of interconnected stories featuring a young black female protagonist in West end Toronto neighbourhood. Frying Plantain is set for a spring 2019 release.

Whitney French is an writer, editor and literacy advocate. (Whitney French)Whitney French is a writer, storyteller and educator. Her self-published poetry collection 3 Cities came out in 2012. Her latest work is Black Writers Matter, an anthology of African Canadian writing — edited and curated by French — which features a cross-section of established and emerging authors. Mentored by author David Chariandy, French also has several literary works in development. 
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Chantal Gibson is a Vancouver-based author, poet and educator. (Dale Northey)Vancouver-based Chantal Gibson is a artist, poet and educator. Her 2019 book How She Read is a collection of genre-blurring poems about the representation of black women in Canada from a cultural perspective. With ancestral roots in Nova Scotia, Gibson's literary approach is dedicated to challenging imperialist ideas by way of a close look at Canadian literature, history, art, media and pop culture.

Kaie Kellough is a Montreal-based author, novelist and poet. (Marie-Claude Plasse)Kaie Kellough is a Montreal-based poet, novelist, and self-described "word-sound systemizer." His experimental novel Accordéon explores the intersection of French and English culture and was a finalist for the Amazon.ca First Novel Award in 2017. Kellough was a 2018 CBC Short Story Prize reader and released the poetry collection Magnetic Equator in 2019.

Ben Philippe is a Montreal-raised writer based in New York. (HarperCollins)Ben Philippe is of Haitian descent, was raised in Montreal and is now based in New York. Philippe has an MFA in fiction and screenwriting, has contributed to publications like Vanity Fair, The Guardian and Playboy and in 2019 released his debut YA novel, The Field Guide to the North American Teenager, about a wisecracking black French Canadian teenager who moves to to Austin, Texas.

Sarah Raughley is an author of fantasy novels. (Melanie Gillis)Sarah Raughley is a fantasy novelist from Southern Ontario. Raughley's recently completed YA Effigies series, which includes Fate of Flames, Siege of Shadows and Legacy of Light, involves four young women are imbued with the powers of the four elements and tasked with protecting the world from the evil Phantoms. Her forthcoming fantasy book, The Bones of Ruins, features a black protagonist in Victorian England.

Ryan B. Patrick · Posted: Feb 06, 2019 12:25 PM ET | Last Updated: February 7

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Also Explore CBC Books: 6 Black Writers to Watch in 2018
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Introducing Carrieanne Leung-Toronto Book Award Finalist and Scarborough Author

2/25/2019

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CBC BOOKS: HOW I WROTE IT
Posted: Apr 24, 2018 
Last Updated: January 2


How Carrianne Leung Drew on her Scarborough Roots to Tackle Sensitive Subjects
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​CBC Books · Posted: Mar 01, 2017
​ Last Updated: June 8, 2018
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Miramar Woo is a bit on the shy side, but with a secret adventurous streak on the inside. On the day she graduates from high school, her father suddenly dies in a tragic accident. As her family copes with their loss, her siblings develop mysterious talents that propel them to fame and fortune. Meanwhile, Miramar's mother struggles with paranoia. Is Miramar all alone now? The Wondrous Woo is a story about discovering your true self and coping with sudden loss and change.

Life is never as perfect as it seems. Tensions that have lurked beneath the surface of a shiny new subdivision rise up, in new fiction from the author of the Toronto Book Award—shortlisted The Wondrous Woo
The suburbs of the 1970s promised to be heaven on earth—new houses, new status, happiness guaranteed. But in a Scarborough subdivision populated by newcomers from all over the world, a series of sudden catastrophic events reveals that not everyone’s dreams come true. Moving from house to house, Carrianne Leung explores the inner lives behind the tidy front gardens and picture-perfect windows, always returning to June, an irrepressible adolescent Chinese-Canadian coming of age in this shifting world. Through June and her neighbours, Leung depicts the fine line where childhood meets the realities of adult life, and examines, with insight and sharp prose, how difficult it is to be true to ourselves at any age. 

Carrianne Leung's previous book, The Wondrous Woo was also a finalist for the Toronto Book Award.
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Carrianne Leung’s That Time I Loved You is a memorable, bewitching read
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The Globe and Mail Book Review post April 12, 2018 BY MARISSA STAPLEY
Scarborough author Carrianne Leung reflects on 'That Time I Loved You'
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toronto.com post JUL 16, 2018 BY MIKE ADLER
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Award-Winning Books By Chinese Authors You Should Read

2/25/2019

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Originally posted by Culture Trip's "10 Award-Winning Books by Asian Authors You Should Read"  by Rich Francis.
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The Boat to Redemption, Su Tong

Famed as the writer behind the Oscar-nominated Raise the Red Lantern film of 1993, Su Tong has risen to become one of China’s leading avant-garde authors. In The Boat to Redemption he crafts a delicate but hard-hitting tale that deals with the pitfalls of power and superstition in 20th century China. The narrative tells the story of a father-and-son duo who shun public life for a drifting existence. Identity is the key theme and a constant desire to discover one’s identity in an ever-changing world.


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Three Sisters, Bi Feiyu

An intense and invigorating examination of personality and rampant individualism that’s set in the context of high-Communist China in the years of the Cultural Revolution, Three Sisters does well to draw its readers in with a plethora of storylines that touch on vice, sex, Machiavellian power plays and contemporary politics all at the same time. With its focus on female characters and their interactions with male patriarchs in the China all around them, the book continues on in the same vein as Feiyu’s other feminist works, while its general success was galvanized in 2010, when it garnered the prestigious Man Booker Prize for Asian Literature.

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​The Garden of Evening Mists, Tan Twan Eng

​Following on from his first novel (The Gift of Rain, 2007) in much the same style, Tan Twang Eng offers up this masterfully-sculpted narrative with all his trademark mysticism and esoteric turns of phrase. In a setting that could easily be the subject of an ink-and-wash painting by the ancient master, Sesshu Toyo, the reader is plunged into a retrospective unraveling of 1950s Malaya, as the British colonialists vie for control of the misty highlands with the Chinese communists. The impetus to action is the respective exile and animosity from and for Japan of the central characters, which slowly evolves into a redemptive dynamic, manifesting through art and the romantic serenity of nature all around.


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​Wolf Totem, Jiang Rong (Lü Jiamin)

Bursting at the seams with various awards and accolades (including a nomination in the 21st Century Ding Jun Semiannual, a listing in the Yazhou Zhoukan weekly and the prestigious Man Asian Literature award), this compelling narrative draws on the author’s own experiences of the Mongolian Steppe, where he went during the tumultuous years of China’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. With glimpses of Turgenev-esque Hunting Sketches and White Fang’s visceral reduction of the human condition, the tale unravels to produce a sort of utopian vision that’s eventually destroyed by the onslaught of a mechanized China—essential reading for any young contrarian.

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Introducing David Chariandy-A Canadian Author With Roots in Scarborough

2/25/2019

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Repost from CBC Books feature 'David Chariandy on what it's like having his novel Brother on Canada Reads'  Posted: Feb 15, 2019 

David Chariandy is an award-winning Vancouver-based author. His latest novel, Brother, is the story of two brothers growing up in a troubled housing complex in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough.
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Brother won the 2017 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize and the 2018 Toronto Book Award.
Now it's a contender for Canada Reads 2019, where it will be defended by Lisa Ray. The debates take place March 25-28, 2019. ​​
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Honouring Chinese-Canadians

2/22/2019

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 Explorations of Chinese-Canadian History & Identity: Then & Now


Chinese Canadians are one of the largest ethnic groups in the country. Despite their importance to the Canadian economy, including the historic construction of the CPR, many European Canadians were hostile to Chinese immigration, and a prohibitive head tax restricted immigration from 1885 to 1923. From 1923 to 1947, the Chinese were excluded altogether from immigrating to Canada. While 1 July is celebrated as Canada Day, some Chinese Canadians refer to that date as "National Humiliation Day." This is because the Chinese were the only ethnic group ever to be excluded from emigrating to Canada.
​For more, check out The Canadian Encyclopedia's feature on Chinese-Canadians

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© Government of Canada/Library and Archives Canada
LOST YEARS is an award-winning epic documentary touching upon 150 years of the Chinese diaspora in Canada, USA, New Zealand and Australia, covering four generations of racism as revealed through the journey and family story of Kenda Gee. Kenda, a Chinese Canadian, travels with his father to China to retrace the steps of his great-grandfather, exactly a century ago, and grandfather, who sailed to Canada in the summer of 1921. For thousands of Chinese immigrants that year, it was a journey of hope that turned into a nightmare when they were confronted with racism and the head tax, depriving them of their rights as citizens.

New B.C. Book Unearths Chinese Labourers’ Secret Role in First World War
by Ng Weng Hoong on November 27th, 2013 at 10:56 AM

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Members of the Chinese Labour Corps unload sacks of oats dockside in Boulogne, France, during the First World War.
For Andrea Yu, being away from her homeland helped her feel more a part of it when she returned

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Anna Yin is Mississauga’s first Poet Laureate (2015-2016) and Ontario representative for the League of Canadian Poets (2013-2016). She has authored six books of poetry and her poems have appeared at ARC Poetry, New York Times, China Daily, CBC Radio, World Journal etc. Anna won many awards including the 2005 Ted Plantos Memorial Award, two MARTY Literary Arts Awards and 2013 Professional Achievement Award from CPAC. Her poem “Still Life” was part of Poetry in Transit featured on buses across Canada in 2013. She read her poetry on Parliament Hill and has been featured at 2015 Austin International Poetry Festival and 2016 Edmonton Poetry Festival. Anna has been interviewed by CBC Radio, Rogers TV and Talent Vision TV, The Toronto Star and China Daily several times. She was a finalist for Canada’s Top 25 Canadian Immigrants Award in 2011 and in 2012, and is proud to be twice a “Living book” for the Living Library at the Mississauga Campus of University of Toronto.  Read more of Anna's story via her Passages to Canada profile

Still Life by Anna Yin

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A painting of fruit hangs
on the wall of our living room.
Morning sun seldom comes here.
Moon offers a drowsy face.
Awake at midnight,
I find my silhouette drifting
on the waiting apples.
I mourn for them,
no better than their succulenceon a kitchen plate--
Either they face the knife
or wait to decay.
For Li Qing ZhaoI by Anna Yin

​I cup your shadow
​with blue fire;
across the ocean,
the wind tastes more salty.
The white is whiter,
and whiter…
the cold is colder,
and colder…
In the early autumn,
I fail to explain to those
who read your poems in accents.
They chase me with questions―
how we Chinese women,
footsteps no sound,
hairbun so high,
shy away from strangers.
Well, clouds are overhead.
I catch ink drops
on my skin―
a trace of moon.
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Passages to Canada: Explore other personal stories of Chinese immigration to Canada

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​Graduation portrait of Agnes Chan, Class of 1923

Agnes Chan, the first Chinese Canadian student to graduate from the Women’s College Hospital School of Nursing, was awarded prizes for highest standing in theory and obstetrical nursing.
​​Date: 1923. Credit: The Miss Margaret Robins Archives of Women’s College Hospital, Photograph collection, L-03117.
courtesy of VirtualMuseum.ca
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Commemorating Frederick Douglass

2/20/2019

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​An 1845 Review of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass


"IT IS AN EXCELLENT PIECE OF WRITING, AND ON THAT SCORE TO BE PRIZED AS A SPECIMEN OF THE POWERS OF THE BLACK RACE, WHICH PREJUDICE PERSISTS IN DISPUTING"
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February 20, 2019  By Literary Hub's Book Marks 

Today marks the one hundred and twenty-forth anniversary of the death of Frederick Douglass. Douglass—who escaped from bondage to become a towering abolitionist, orator, and statesman—penned what is generally considered to be the most iconic and influential slave narrative of the period, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. First published in 1845 to quell doubts about his origins, the memoir was an instant success, selling 5,000 copies within four months and almost 30,000 by 1860.
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Now considered a foundation text in the history of American civil rights literature, we thought we’d take a look back at one of the very first reviews of this vital and groundbreaking work.

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Frederick Douglass speaking. By unk – National Park Service: Frederick Douglass National Historic Site. Image is in the public domain via WikiMedia.com
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CBC Books: Meet the Canada Reads 2019 Contenders

2/19/2019

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What do a musician, a model, a science journalist, an actor and a fashion guru have in common? They are all panellists for Canada Reads 2019. Over four days in March, the five defenders will bring their diverse perspectives to this year's theme: One Book to Move You.

The contenders and their chosen books are:
  • Chuck Comeau defending Homes by Abu Bakr al Rabeeah with Winnie Yeung
  • Lisa Ray defending Brother by David Chariandy
  • Ziya Tong defending By Chance Alone by Max Eisen
  • Yanic Truesdale defending Suzanne by Anaïs Barbeau-Lavalette, translated by Rhonda Mullins
  • Joe Zee defending The Woo-Woo by Lindsay Wong
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Check Out these "Choice Awards for 2018" &  Other Good Stuff from Goodreads!

2/19/2019

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​Announcing the winners of the 10th Annual Goodreads Choice Awards, the only major book awards decided by readers. Congratulations to the best books of the year!

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February's Hottest New Releases​
Looking for a new book? You can't go wrong with one of February's new releases, which include a highly anticipated new fantasy from a Man Booker Prize-winning author (
Black Leopard, Red Wolf), a couple of red-hot new mysteries (The Lost Man and The Silent Patient), and a new historical fiction novel from the author of The Alice Network (The Huntress). 

Each month the Goodreads Editorial team takes a look at the books that are being published, how early reviewers are rating them, and how many of you are adding these books to your Want to Read shelf. We use the information to curate this list of books you can't wait to read. 
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Romance Readers Don't Actually Love Jerks--
​and Other Misconceptions Debunked by Experts

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Happy Day After Valentine's Day: PBS' It's Lit-An Ode to the Romance Novel

2/15/2019

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IT'S LIT!
An Ode to the Romance Novel
07/30/2018 | 5m 53s       

​Love it or hate it, the romance novel is the highest grossing literary genre. Its history is long and winding (like your favorite romance novel), and romance novels are full of tropes reflected upon its history. It has been the subject of intrigue, derision, and shame in literary discourse long before the modern genre as we know it existed.
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Below are some popular ROMANCE novels to "fall in love with"...

Celebrating Love in All its Forms: Check Out These Popular Young Adult LGBTQ Books
See a book you love? Ask a librarian. If we don't have it, we can try to get it for you. xo CCI Library.
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Author Study: Toni Morrison

2/15/2019

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Toni Morrison Biographical
Born Chloe Anthony Wofford, in 1931 in Lorain (Ohio), the second of four children in a black working-class family. Displayed an early interest in literature. Studied humanities at Howard and Cornell Universities, followed by an academic career at Texas Southern University, Howard University, Yale, and since 1989, a chair at Princeton University. She has also worked as an editor for Random House, a critic, and given numerous public lectures, specializing in African-American literature. She made her debut as a novelist in 1970, soon gaining the attention of both critics and a wider audience for her epic power, unerring ear for dialogue, and her poetically-charged and richly-expressive depictions of Black America. A member since 1981 of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she has been awarded a number of literary distinctions, among them the Pulitzer Prize in 1988.

From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1991-1995, Editor Sture Allén, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1997

Morrison has written eleven novels and countless other essays, nonfiction books, plays, children’s fiction, and even a libretto. She was the 1993 winner of the Nobel Prize of Literature, and won the Pulitzer Prize and the American Book Award in 1988 for Beloved. In 2012, President Barack Obama awarded her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and in 2016, she received the PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction. She is a novelist, essayist, editor, teacher, and a professor emeritus at Princeton University.

From https://bookriot.com/2018/05/15/toni-morrison-books/
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Barack Obama awards the medal of freedom to Toni Morrison in 2012. Photograph: Martin H Simon/Corbis
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​“YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING.”

AND OTHER WRITING ADVICE FROM TONI MORRISON

5 things you may not know about Toni Morrison
New York Times: The Radical Vision of Toni Morrison
Book Riot-Where to start with Toni Morrison Books...

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The Bluest Eye
​Pecola Breedlove, a young black girl, prays every day for beauty. Mocked by other children for the dark skin, curly hair, and brown eyes that set her apart, she yearns for normalcy, for the blond hair and blue eyes that she believes will allow her to finally fit in.Yet as her dream grows more fervent, her life slowly starts to disintegrate in the face of adversity and strife. A powerful examination of our obsession with beauty and conformity, Toni Morrison’s virtuosic first novel asks powerful questions about race, class, and gender with the subtlety and grace that have always characterized her writing.

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Beloved is arguably Morrison’s most famous or classic book. It’s about the post-slavery life of Sethe, a mother who was a slave at a place called Sweet Home, about a baby named Beloved, and about a daughter named Denver. Morrison was inspired by the tale of Margaret Garner, a woman who killed her own daughter rather than allow her to be put back into slavery, and about the argument that ensued—the abolitionists wanted her hanged, because she was a person capable of murder, while the slave owners argued that she was only property, and so should be returned to her owner. She combined that tale with a vision of a woman on a tree stump that she saw one day from her window to write this tale of loss and longing.

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Jazz
In the winter of 1926, when everybody everywhere sees nothing but good things ahead, Joe Trace, middle-aged door-to-door salesman of Cleopatra beauty products, shoots his teenage lover to death. At the funeral, Joe’s wife, Violet, attacks the girl’s corpse. This passionate, profound story of love and obsession brings us back and forth in time, as a narrative is assembled from the emotions, hopes, fears, and deep realities of black urban life.

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“They shoot the white girl first. With the rest they can take their time.” So begins Toni Morrison’s Paradise, which opens with a horrifying scene of mass violence and chronicles its genesis in an all-black small town in rural Oklahoma. Founded by the descendants of freed slaves and survivors in exodus from a hostile world, the patriarchal community of Ruby is built on righteousness, rigidly enforced moral law, and fear. But seventeen miles away, another group of exiles has gathered in a promised land of their own. And it is upon these women in flight from death and despair that nine male citizens of Ruby will lay their pain, their terror, and their murderous rage.

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Spare and unsparing, 
God Help the Child is a searing tale about the way childhood trauma shapes and misshapes the life of the adult. At the centre: a woman who calls herself Bride, whose stunning blue-black skin is only one element of her beauty, her boldness and confidence, her success in life; but which caused her light-skinned mother to deny her even the simplest forms of love until she told a lie that ruined the life of an innocent woman, a lie whose reverberations refuse to diminish....
Booker, the man Bride loves and loses, whose core of anger was born in the wake of the childhood murder of his beloved brother ... Rain, the mysterious white child, who finds in Bride the only person she can talk to about the abuse she's suffered at the hands of her prostitute mother ... and Sweetness, Bride's mother, who takes a lifetime to understand that "what you do to children matters. And they might never forget."
* book synopses from amazon.ca

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