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Due to the strike by Canada Post workers, CELA has suspended production and mailing of physical materials. Digital options are unaffected.
Showing 1 - 10 of 10 items
By Omar El Akkad. 2025
On October 25, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet:…
"One day, when it's safe, when there's no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it's too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this." This tweet has been viewed more than 10 million times. As an immigrant who came to the West, El Akkad believed that it promised freedom. A place of justice for all. But in the past twenty years, reporting on the War on Terror, Ferguson, climate change, Black Lives Matter protests, and more, and watching the unmitigated slaughter in Gaza, El Akkad has come to the conclusion that much of what the West promises is a lie. That there will always be entire groups of human beings it has never intended to treat as fully human-not just Arabs or Muslims or immigrants, but whoever falls outside the boundaries of privilege. One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This is a chronicle of that painful realization, a moral grappling with what it means, as a citizen of the U.S., as a father, to carve out some sense of possibility in a time of carnage. This is El Akkad's nonfiction debut, his most raw and vulnerable work to date, a heartsick breakup letter with the West. It is a brilliant articulation of the same breakup we are watching all over the United States, in family rooms, on college campuses, on city streets; the consequences of this rupture are just beginning. This book is for all the people who want something better than what the West has served up. This is the book for our time.By Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. 2025
Acclaimed Nishnaabeg writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson takes a revolutionary look at that most elemental force, water, and suggests a powerful…
path for the future.For many years, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson has found refuge in skiing—in all kinds of weather across different forms of terrain, often following the trail beside a beloved creek near her home. Recently, as she skimmed along this path and meditated on our world's uncertainty—including environmental devastation, the rise of authoritarianism, and the effects of ongoing social injustice—her mind turned to the ice beside her, and the snow beneath her feet. And she asked herself: What might it mean to truly listen to water? To know not only the land on which we live, but the water that surrounds and inhabits us? To coexist with and alongside water? So begins this renowned writer's quest to discover, understand, and trace the historical and cultural interactions of Indigenous peoples with water in all its forms. On her journey, she reflects on the teachings, traditions, stories, and creative work of others in her community—particularly those of her longtime friend Doug Williams, an Elder whose presence suffuses these pages; reads deeply the words of thinkers from other communities whose writing expands her own; and begins to shape a "Theory of Water" that reimagines relationships among all beings and life-forces. In this essential and inventive work, Simpson artfully weaves Nishnaabeg stories with her own thought and lived experience—and offers a vision of water as a catalyst for transformation, today and into our shared future.By Tessa McWatt. 2025
In her memoir The Snag, the acclaimed, award-winning author of Shame on Me, Tessa McWatt, takes on personal and collective…
grief, and the solace and inspiration to be found in connecting with nature—and each other.Every day, we hear about and experience griefs, large and small, in our families, friendships, communities, and worldwide. The grief of a loved one passing. The grief of a way of life ceasing to exist. The grief of global pandemic, war, climate collapse.As her mother’s dementia advances and she can no longer live independently, Tessa McWatt confronts personal and political losses, and finds herself wandering in a forest asking, how do we grieve? And what can we learn from nature and those whose communities are rooted in nature about not only how to grieve but also how to live?From the newest seedling to the oldest snag in the forest, there is meaning to be found in every stage of a tree’s life, all of which contribute to a thriving forest community. In this forest thinking, Tessa begins to find answers to her questions about how to live (for each other), how to grieve (radically), and how to die (with love and connection).The Snag is an essential book about living and dancing and singing and praying, even in the face of unimaginable sadness, and in this way, growing together and supporting one another, like the trees in the forest.By Vinh Nguyen. 2025
NATIONAL BESTSELLER An inventive memoir about one family's escape from Vietnam and the father's mysterious disappearance along the way. This…
book is an intricate exploration of a searching mind, shedding light on the psyche of a grieving son, as he chases certainty and seeks elusive resolution. With the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, the U.S. war in Vietnam ended, but the refugee crisis was only beginning. Among the millions of people who fled Vietnam by boat was Vinh Nguyen, along with his mother and siblings, and his father, who left separately and then mysteriously vanished. Decades later, Nguyen goes looking for answers. What he discovers is a sea of questions drifting above sunken truths. To find his father—and anchor himself in the present—Nguyen must piece together the debris of history with family stories that have been scattered across generations and continents, kept for years in broken hearts and guarded silences. As the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War approaches, The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse takes readers on a poignant tour of disappeared refugee camps, abandoned family homes, and reimagined lives. Part fractured reminiscence, part invented history, and part fictional fabulation, Nguyen's story is about learning to live with what's already lost and the memories of what might have beenBy Miriam Toews. 2025
In this breathtaking memoir of stunning emotional force and electrifying honesty, one of Canada's most iconic writers tells her own…
story for the first time."Why do you write?" the organizer of a literary event in Mexico City asks Miriam Toews. Each attempt at an answer from Toews—all unsatisfactory to the organizer—surfaces new layers of grief, guilt, and futility connected to her sister’s suicide more than fifteen years ago. She has been keeping up, she realizes, an internal correspondence with her beloved sibling, attempting to fill a silence she can barely comprehend. As Toews turns to face that silence, we come to see that the question "why I write" is as impossible to answer as deciding whether to live life as a comedy or a tragedy. A masterwork of non-fiction, A Truce That Is Not Peace explores the uneasy pact every creative person makes with memory. Wildly original yet intimately, powerfully precise; momentous, hilarious, wrenching, and joyful—this is Miriam Toews at her dazzling best, remaking her personal world and inventing a brilliant literary form to hold it.By Omar El Akkad. 2025
"From award-winning novelist and journalist Omar El Akkad comes a powerful reckoning with what it means to live in the…
heart of an empire that doesn't consider you fully human. On October 25th, 2023, after just three weeks of the bombardment of Gaza, Omar El Akkad put out a tweet: "One day, when it's safe, when there's no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it's too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this." This tweet was viewed more than ten million times. One Day Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This chronicles the deep fracture that has occurred for Black, brown, Indigenous Americans, as well as the upcoming generation, many of whom had clung to a thread of faith in Western ideals, in the idea that their countries, or the countries of their adoption, actually attempted to live up to the values they espouse"By Tessa McWatt. 2025
In her memoir The Snag, the acclaimed, award-winning author of Shame on Me, Tessa McWatt, takes on personal and collective…
grief, and the solace and inspiration to be found in connecting with nature—and each other.Every day, we hear about and experience griefs, large and small, in our families, friendships, communities, and worldwide. The grief of a loved one passing. The grief of a way of life ceasing to exist. The grief of global pandemic, war, climate collapse.As her mother&’s dementia advances and she can no longer live independently, Tessa McWatt confronts personal and political losses, and finds herself wandering in a forest asking, how do we grieve? And what can we learn from nature and those whose communities are rooted in nature about not only how to grieve but also how to live?From the newest seedling to the oldest snag in the forest, there is meaning to be found in every stage of a tree&’s life, all of which contribute to a thriving forest community. In this forest thinking, Tessa begins to find answers to her questions about how to live (for each other), how to grieve (radically), and how to die (with love and connection).The Snag is an essential book about living and dancing and singing and praying, even in the face of unimaginable sadness, and in this way, growing together and supporting one another, like the trees in the forest.By Vinh Nguyen. 2025
An inventive memoir about one family’s escape from Vietnam and the father’s mysterious disappearance along the way. This book is…
an intricate exploration of a searching mind, shedding light on the psyche of a grieving son, as he chases certainty and seeks elusive resolution.With the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975, the U.S. war in Vietnam ended, but the refugee crisis was only beginning. Among the millions of people who fled Vietnam by boat was Vinh Nguyen, along with his mother and siblings, and his father, who left separately and then mysteriously vanished.Decades later, Nguyen goes looking for answers. What he discovers is a sea of questions drifting above sunken truths. To find his father—and anchor himself in the present—Nguyen must piece together the debris of history with family stories that have been scattered across generations and continents, kept for years in broken hearts and guarded silences.As the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War approaches, The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse takes readers on a poignant tour of disappeared refugee camps, abandoned family homes, and reimagined lives.Part fractured reminiscence, part invented history, and part fictional fabulation, Nguyen’s story is about learning to live with what’s already lost and the memories of what might have been.By Leanne Betasamosake Simpson. 2025
Acclaimed Nishnaabeg writer Leanne Betasamosake Simpson takes a revolutionary look at that most elemental force, water, and suggests a powerful…
path for the future.For many years, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson has found refuge in skiing—in all kinds of weather across different forms of terrain, often following the trail beside a beloved creek near her home. Recently, as she skimmed along this path and meditated on our world's uncertainty—including environmental devastation, the rise of authoritarianism, and the effects of ongoing social injustice—her mind turned to the ice beside her, and the snow beneath her feet. And she asked herself: What might it mean to truly listen to water? To know not only the land on which we live, but the water that surrounds and inhabits us? To coexist with and alongside water? So begins this renowned writer's quest to discover, understand, and trace the historical and cultural interactions of Indigenous peoples with water in all its forms. On her journey, she reflects on the teachings, traditions, stories, and creative work of others in her community—particularly those of her longtime friend Doug Williams, an Elder whose presence suffuses these pages; reads deeply the words of thinkers from other communities whose writing expands her own; and begins to shape a "Theory of Water" that reimagines relationships among all beings and life-forces. In this essential and inventive work, Simpson artfully weaves Nishnaabeg stories with her own thought and lived experience—and offers a vision of water as a catalyst for transformation, today and into our shared future.By Miriam Toews. 2025
In this breathtaking memoir of stunning emotional force and electrifying honesty, one of Canada's most iconic writers tells her own…
story for the first time. "Why does Miriam Toews write? A Truce That Is Not Peace answers the question in a hundred ways, all of them original, autobiographical, deeply painful, funny, oblique, confounding—just as those of us who believe her to be one of the greatest living North American writers have come to expect. A Truce That Is Not Peace is the best memoir you will read all year." —Nick Hornby, author of High Fidelity&“Why do you write?&” the organizer of a literary event in Mexico City asks Miriam Toews. Each attempt at an answer from Toews—all unsatisfactory to the organizer—surfaces new layers of grief, guilt, and futility connected to her sister&’s suicide more than fifteen years ago. She has been keeping up, she realizes, an internal correspondence with her beloved sibling, attempting to fill a silence she can barely comprehend. As Toews turns to face that silence, we come to see that the question &“why I write&” is as impossible to answer as deciding whether to live life as a comedy or a tragedy. A masterwork of non-fiction, A Truce That Is Not Peace explores the uneasy pact every creative person makes with memory. Wildly original yet intimately, powerfully precise; momentous, hilarious, wrenching, and joyful—this is Miriam Toews at her dazzling best, remaking her personal world and inventing a brilliant literary form to hold it.