The Tusk That Did the Damage


Tania James - 2015
    Manu, the studious younger son of a rice farmer, loses his cousin to the Gravedigger’s violence and is drawn, with his wayward brother Jayan, into the sordid, alluring world of poaching. Emma is a young American working on a documentary with her college best friend, who witnesses the porous boundary between conservation and corruption and finds herself in her own moral gray area: a risky affair with the veterinarian who is the film’s subject. As the novel hurtles toward its tragic climax, these three storylines fuse into a wrenching meditation on love and betrayal, duty and loyalty, and the vexed relationship between man and nature.With lyricism and suspense, Tania James animates the rural landscapes where Western idealism clashes with local reality; where a farmer’s livelihood can be destroyed by a rampaging elephant; where men are driven to poaching. In James’ arrestingly beautiful prose, The Tusk That Did the Damage blends the mythical and the political to tell a wholly original, utterly contemporary story about the majestic animal, both god and menace, that has mesmerized us for centuries.

We Need New Names


NoViolet Bulawayo - 2013
    In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad.But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few. NoViolet Bulawayo's debut calls to mind the great storytellers of displacement and arrival who have come before her--from Junot Diaz to Zadie Smith to J.M. Coetzee--while she tells a vivid, raw story all her own.

Tree Tops


Jim Corbett - 1991
    Although containing vivid descriptions of the area's wildlife, Corbett concentrates on the visit of Princess Elizabeth to Tree Tops, where she learned of George VI's death.

Outside the Wire: The War in Afghanistan in the Words of Its Participants


Kevin Patterson - 2007
    Throughout each piece the passion of those engaged in rebuilding this shattered country shines through, a glimmer of optimism and determination so rare in multinational military actions–and so particularly Canadian.In Outside the Wire, award-winning author Kevin Patterson and co-editor Jane Warren have rediscovered the valour and horror of sacrifice in this, the definitive account of the modern Canadian experience of war.

My Heart is Not My Own


Michael Wuitchik - 2013
    John Rourke is haunted by his days as a relief doctor in West Africa. In the 1990s, in the midst of a civil war, he provided medical attention and supplies to the people of Sierra Leone. He befriended a local nurse named Mariama Lahai and a doctor named Momodu, but lost contact when the conflict escalated to conflagration. His last memory of Sierra Leone is of Mariama delivering a beautiful baby girl to a tortured, mutilated mother just before armed rebels take the hospital.Now living in Vancouver and happily married to Nadia, who is expecting their first child, John is thrust back into the horrors of the past by the arrival of a package from Sierra Leone. He realizes that before he can commit to his future, he’ll have to confront his conscience and the pain of his past. He embarks upon a journey that takes him back into Mariama’s world of child soldiers, bush-wives, and African secret societies.My Heart Is Not My Own is a story of love, courage, and resilience that is brought to life through the powerful voice of Mariama.

Other Women


Evelyn Lau - 1995
    An older married man.  Their haunted relationship evolves in a floating melange of restaurants and hotel rooms against the looming backdrop of their separate, anonymous cities.  Although erotically charged, the affair is never consummated - yet the love Fiona feels intensifies into an obsession that continues to possess her long after Raymond leaves her.  Along the way, at receptions and restaurant tables, at dinner parties and on trips, Fiona meets other men and women in relationships that are coming together or falling apart-friendships, marriages, love affairs - each offering their own version of love's nature.  And, throughout, Raymond's wife Helen holds a central place.  For Fiona, Helen herself is "the other woman" - mysterious, enviable and untouchable.

Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found


Suketu Mehta - 2004
    He approaches the city from unexpected angles, taking us into the criminal underworld of rival Muslim and Hindu gangs; following the life of a bar dancer raised amid poverty and abuse; opening the door into the inner sanctums of Bollywood; and delving into the stories of the countless villagers who come in search of a better life and end up living on the sidewalks.

Indian Horse


Richard Wagamese - 2012
    His last binge almost killed him, and now he’s a reluctant resident in a treatment centre for alcoholics, surrounded by people he’s sure will never understand him. But Saul wants peace, and he grudgingly comes to see that he’ll find it only through telling his story. With him, readers embark on a journey back through the life he’s led as a northern Ojibway, with all its joys and sorrows.With compassion and insight, author Richard Wagamese traces through his fictional characters the decline of a culture and a cultural way. For Saul, taken forcibly from the land and his family when he’s sent to residential school, salvation comes for a while through his incredible gifts as a hockey player. But in the harsh realities of 1960s Canada, he battles obdurate racism and the spirit-destroying effects of cultural alienation and displacement. Indian Horse unfolds against the bleak loveliness of northern Ontario, all rock, marsh, bog and cedar. Wagamese writes with a spare beauty, penetrating the heart of a remarkable Ojibway man.