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CELA will be closed on Monday, August 4th. Our office will reopen and our Contact Centre services will resume on Tuesday, August 5th. Enjoy the holiday!
Showing 1 - 5 of 5 items
Four generations. Three sisters. One impossible choice. A profoundly moving debut novel spanning India, Uganda, England, and Canada, about how…
one act of survival reverberates across generations of a family and their search for a place of their own. Named a New York Times Book Review Editors' Pick, and a most anticipated book of 2023 by the Toronto Star , the Globe and Mail , OprahDaily, and Goodreads. India, 1898. Pirbhai is the thirteen-year-old breadwinner for his family when he steps into a dhow on the promise of work, only to be taken across the ocean to labour on the East African Railway for the British. With no money or voice but a strong will to survive, he makes an impossible choice that will haunt him for the rest of his days and reverberate across generations. Pirbhai’s children go on to thrive in Uganda during the waning days of British colonial rule. As the country moves towards independence and military dictatorship, Pirbhai’s granddaughters—sisters Latika, Mayuri, and Kiya—come of age in a divided nation, each forging her own path for the future. Latika is an aspiring journalist with a fierce determination to fight for what she believes in. Mayuri’s ambitions will take her farther away from her family than she ever imagined. And fearless Kiya will have to bear the weight of their secrets. Forced to flee Uganda during Idi Amin’s brutal expulsion of South Asians in 1972, the family must start their lives over again in Toronto. Then one day news arrives that makes each generation question how far they are willing to go, and who they are willing to defy, to secure a place of their own in the world. A masterful and breathtakingly intimate saga of colonialism and exile, complicity and resistance, A History of Burning is a radiant debut about the stories our families choose to share—and those that remain unspoken
Coleman Hill is the exhilarating story of two American families whose fates become intertwined in the wake of the Great…
Migration. Braiding fact and fiction, it is a remarkable, character-rich tour de force exploring the ties that bind three generations. In 1916, Celia Coleman and Lucy Grimes flee the racism and poverty of their homes in the post–Civil War South for the "Promised Land" of the North. But soon they learn that even in Vauxhall, New Jersey, black women are mainly hired for domestic work, money is scarce, children don't progress in school, and black men die young. Within a few short years, both women's husbands are dead. Left to navigate this unwelcoming place alone, Celia and Lucy turn to one another for support in raising their children far from home. They become one another's closest confidantes and, encouraged by their mothers' friendship, their children's lives become enmeshed as well. However, with this closeness comes complication. As the children grow into adolescence, two are caught in an impulsive act of impropriety, and Celia and Lucy find themselves at irreconcilable odds over who's to blame. The ensuing fallout has dire consequences that reverberate through the next two generations of their families. A stunning biomythography—a word coined by the late great writer Audre Lorde—Coleman Hill draws from the author's own family legend, historical record, and fervent imagination to create an unforgettable new history
New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice • A courageous young Sri Lankan woman tries to protect her dream of…
becoming a doctor in this “heartbreaking exploration of a family fractured by civil war” (Brit Bennett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half ). “This book, a careful, vivid exploration of what’s lost within a community when life and thought collapse toward binary conflict, rang softly for me as a novel for our own country in this odd time.”—Nathan Heller, The New Yorker AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR • FINALIST FOR THE MINNESOTA BOOK AWARD • SHORTLISTED FOR THE CAROL SHIELDS PRIZE FOR FICTION • LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN ’ S PRIZE FOR FICTION • LONGLISTED FOR THE ASIAN PRIZE FOR FICTION Jaffna, 1981. Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, a vicious civil war tears through her home, and her dream spins off course as she sees her four beloved brothers and their friend K swept up in the mounting violence. Desperate to act, Sashi accepts K’s invitation to work as a medic at a field hospital for the militant Tamil Tigers, who, following years of state discrimination and violence, are fighting for a separate homeland for Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority. But after the Tigers murder one of her teachers and Indian peacekeepers arrive only to commit further atrocities, Sashi begins to question where she stands. When one of her medical school professors, a Tamil feminist and dissident, invites her to join a secret project documenting human rights violations, she embarks on a dangerous path that will change her forever. Set during the early years of Sri Lanka’s three-decade civil war, Brotherless Night is a heartrending portrait of one woman’s moral journey and a testament to both the enduring impact of war and the bonds of home
Four generations. Three sisters. One impossible choice. A profoundly moving debut novel spanning India, Uganda, England, and Canada, about how one…
act of survival reverberates across generations of a family and their search for a place of their own. Named a most anticipated book of 2023 by the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail, OprahDaily, and Goodreads.India, 1898. Pirbhai is the thirteen-year-old breadwinner for his family when he steps into a dhow on the promise of work, only to be taken across the ocean to labour on the East African Railway for the British. With no money or voice but a strong will to survive, he makes an impossible choice that will haunt him for the rest of his days and reverberate across generations.Pirbhai&’s children go on to thrive in Uganda during the waning days of British colonial rule. As the country moves towards independence and military dictatorship, Pirbhai&’s granddaughters—sisters Latika, Mayuri, and Kiya—come of age in a divided nation, each forging her own path for the future. Latika is an aspiring journalist with a fierce determination to fight for what she believes in. Mayuri&’s ambitions will take her farther away from her family than she ever imagined. And fearless Kiya will have to bear the weight of their secrets.Forced to flee Uganda during Idi Amin&’s brutal expulsion of South Asians in 1972, the family must start their lives over again in Toronto. Then one day news arrives that makes each generation question how far they are willing to go, and who they are willing to defy, to secure a place of their own in the world. A masterful and breathtakingly intimate saga of colonialism and exile, complicity and resistance, A History of Burning is a radiant debut about the stories our families choose to share—and those that remain unspoken.
New York Times Book Review Editors&’ Choice • A courageous young Sri Lankan woman tries to protect her dream of…
becoming a doctor in this &“heartbreaking exploration of a family fractured by civil war&” (Brit Bennett, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Vanishing Half).&“This book, a careful, vivid exploration of what&’s lost within a community when life and thought collapse toward binary conflict, rang softly for me as a novel for our own country in this odd time.&”—Nathan Heller, The New Yorker AN NPR BEST BOOK OF THE YEARJaffna, 1981. Sixteen-year-old Sashi wants to become a doctor. But over the next decade, a vicious civil war tears through her home, and her dream spins off course as she sees her four beloved brothers and their friend K swept up in the mounting violence. Desperate to act, Sashi accepts K&’s invitation to work as a medic at a field hospital for the militant Tamil Tigers, who, following years of state discrimination and violence, are fighting for a separate homeland for Sri Lanka&’s Tamil minority. But after the Tigers murder one of her teachers and Indian peacekeepers arrive only to commit further atrocities, Sashi begins to question where she stands. When one of her medical school professors, a Tamil feminist and dissident, invites her to join a secret project documenting human rights violations, she embarks on a dangerous path that will change her forever.Set during the early years of Sri Lanka&’s three-decade civil war, Brotherless Night is a heartrending portrait of one woman&’s moral journey and a testament to both the enduring impact of war and the bonds of home.