Results tagged “rawihage”

Every Tuesday afternoon, Torontoist rounds up the city's literary news, including book deals, events, local sales, author happenings, and insider information from the book industry.

Who's going to come out on top of the strangest Giller Prize shortlist in years? While the smart money is on Rawi Hage's DeNiro's Game, which is also nominated for the Governor General's Award, writers from the Globe raised a convincing argument for Gaetan Soucy's the Immaculate Conception.

When Canadians want satire we turn TV figures like Rick Mercer, but satire, that most difficult of comedic genres, is virtually dead in CanLit. Or is it? Randy Boyagoda's debut novel The Governor of the Northern Province is a satire so dark that you can almost hear all of the squirming amongst those expecting the typical Canadian novel. Boyagoda tells the story of Bokarie, an African war criminal who somehow escapes to Canada and finds his way into the circle of a small-town woman eager to make it to Parliament Hill and power. The novel skewers the peculiarities of small-town Canada, and some of the more ridiculous aspects of multiculturalism and immigration. In Boyagoda's hands literary satire isn't dead, it just might have a fighting chance.

And where can we get some? 110 Spadina Ave. is the building that houses the House of Anansi Press among other things. The medium-sized publisher is having an amazing year. First was the news that two of their books, Rawi Hage's De Niro's Game and Gaetan Soucy's the Immaculate Conception, made it on to the weirdest Giller shortlist in years. Then this morning the boys and girls at Anansi got even more good news. Hage's debut novel about the Lebanese civil war was also picked for the Governor General's shortlist and Peter Behren's the Law of Dreams also got the thumbs up from the GG.