Product Description
Winner of the 2008 Governor General’s Award for Fiction

Montreal during the turbulentmid-1980s: Chernobyl has set Geiger counters thrumming across the globe, HIV/AIDSis cutting a deadly swath through the gay population worldwide, and locally, tempersare flaring over the recent codification of French as the official language of Quebec.Hiding out in a seedy apartment near campus, Alex Fratarcangeli (“Don’t worry. .. . I can’t even pronounce it myself”), an awkward, thirty-something grad student,is plagued by the sensation that his entire life is a fraud. Scarred by a distantfather and a dangerous relationship with his ex Liz, and consumed by a flounderingdissertation linking Darwin’s theory of evolution with the history of human narrative,Alex has come to view love and other human emotions as “evolutionary surplus, haphazardneural responses that nature had latched onto for its own insidious purposes.” WhenAlex receives a letter from Ingrid, the beautiful woman he knew years ago in Sweden,notifying him of the existence of his five-year-old son, he is gripped by a paralyticterror.Whenever Alex’s thoughts grow darkest, he recalls Desmond, the British professorwith dubious credentials whom he met years ago in the Galapagos. Treacherous anddespicable, wearing his ignominy like his rumpled jacket, Desmond nonetheless caughtAlex in his thrall and led him to some life-altering truths during their weeks exploringDarwin’s islands together. It is only now that Alex can begin to comprehend theseunlikely life lessons, and see a glimmer of hope shining through what he had thoughtwas meaninglessness. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Worth the Effort
This is a serious work of fiction. It is long and dense with a large number of characters who enter and disappear and when their names pop up many pages later I found myself asking, Now who was that again? Although told in the third person, we follow the events and thoughts of Alex, a graduate student in literature.Alex is the son of Italian immigrants living in Montreal. As a person who has yet to visit Montreal, I got a sense of its character and ambience by reading this novel. Alex also makes extended trips to Scandinavia and the Galapagos Islands. Alex is not a pleasant person to be around. He is extremely judgmental, directing most of the judgments against himself, habitually doubting every decision as soon as he makes it. In fact, he is kinder and more helpful then he imagines. He is particularly generous toward Jiri, his off-the-wall Eastern European mentor, and Esther a young woman deteriorating from MS. Esther is an important character as is Charles Darwin who appears regularly in Alex's thoughts (I particularly enjoyed Alex's visit to Darwin's English home) and Peter Gzowski , a deceased Canadian radio host, whose imaginary interview with Alex is sprinkled throughout the text. Esther's painful deterioration is with us from the first page to the last. And it is painful. Ricci does not blink, not when he looks at Esther, not when he looks at life in general. Ricci explores the big questions in this book in a way that one can through literature. There are a few awkward sentences and many beautiful insightful ones. The best thing for this reader was watching the play of the author's exceptional mind as characters and places and thoughts enter and leave and Alex stumbles along toward maturity. A very satisfying experience if you are up for the challenge. Doug IngoldThe Henderson Memories

The Worst
Simply said, I hated this book.There's nothing I liked about it.It was a book group choice and out of the 6 of us, not one of us liked it. (Not even the one who chose it).The writing is all over the place, goes nowhere & the main characters are not at all interesting.The other reviews portrayed the story so I won't do that, but since Amazon sent an e-mail asking for a review of the book, here it is-It's one of the worst books I've ever read, and I've read a lot!

Humanity 101
I'm not normally partial to romances. I mean, "happily ever after"? Yeah, and then what? This, though, is my kind of love story.

Love, sex: it all boils down to genetics, which when you think about it, boils down to sheer, dumb, blind luck. Primates' nearest cousins died out 50 million years ago. There's maybe one lucky mutation that separates a dead species from one whose descendents will be using opposable thumbs to text each other Tiger Woods gossip.

That's the rather bleak message at the heart of "Origin of the Species" by Canadian author Nino Ricci; life is random chance. Nobody better exemplifies this than Alex Fratarcangeli, an Italian-Canadian graduate student studying at Montreal's Concordia university. Alex drifts along, a passenger in his own life, carried by the currents and eddies of chance as they bring him bumping against fortune's flotsam and jetsam. These include Esther, a bubbly neighbour who sadly suffers from multiple sclerosis, Ingrid, a Swedish divorcee with unfortunate taste in men, Desmond, an unlucky British would-be researcher, Maria, an El Salvadorean refugee, a professor on the skids, a businessman with a disease -- Yes, there's plenty of dumb, blind luck to go around.

There isn't much plot, but then that was Darwin's point as well; there's no grand plan, no script, no author, no guarantees in life other than a very final End.

Alex scrapes a living teaching English as a second language while trying to muster enough enthusiasm to finish his thesis on the biological origins of storytelling. Books, in other words, are just another way to propagate your genes -- to get people to have sex with you (fair warning: book reviewing has no such power). Not that Alex needs any help in this department, despite his rather passive approach to life. The main branches from the main plot follow his disfunctional relationships with a raft of women, including Esther, Ingrid and Maria, as well as with Desmond and the others.

Without plot, you're left to fall back on character and setting, and this is where Mr Ricci's writing comes to life. Alex and his companions are not just believable, they're disturbingly familiar. You want to hate Alex, then catch part of him in your reflection. Ingrid, Esther and the others exist as fully-formed individuals, never mere ciphers or signposts. Each adapts to their environment, showing you different facets of thier personality, now a bullying tyrant, now a cringing supplicant. Only in Desmond, relentlessly awful and irritating, does Mr Ricci get carried into caricature.

"Origin of the Species" isn't a compelling story, but it's filled with compelling people. They pull you along in their wake, unwilling to let go so you can unravel their codes, see what makes them tick.

I said it was a love story, didn't I? And the object of desire is Canada. Canada in the 1980s, in Montreal, to be precise. American readers be warned; Mr Ricci expects you to keep up when he references Steinberg's, Pierre Trudeau and Peter Gzowski. "Origin of the Species" is brashly Canadian in exactly the way that Canadians aren't. It's like the Group of Seven, Canadians are always drawn to the land, even if it's seen from the windows of a coffee shop. The rush of names is overwhelming even for a Canadian, but you'll manage, you'll adapt. It's in your genes.

It's not always a fun read, but the love of place is part of what stops things from being completely gloomy. This may be all we have, but hey, isn't it something? We may be no more than genes, but you know, they're pretty good ones at that. There's the possibilty, not the promise, of happiness for those who fall in love. With the here and now.

And that's the kind of happy ending you can believe in.

Alex and Evolution
Book Review by Ethel Clark

The Origin of Species by Nino Ricci
Published in Canada, Sept. 30, 2008 by Doubleday ISBN 10:0385663609

The author focuses on two main topics: Alex, an anxiety-ridden and depressed Canadian Literature student in 1980's Montreal and Charles Darwin's theory on evolution and the meaning of life.

Alex is not forceful, or that interesting. Lots of events happen, not plot-driven. The many facts and quotes from authors inspired me to research Darwin and Malthus, two scientists. It took me a while to get through it, going back to reread passages.

The story begins and ends with Esther, giving it a smooth conclusion. Excitement didn't begin until the middle of the book in the Galapagos Islands with Desmond and Santos in search of the special plants connected with Darwin. These characters were raw and attention-getting, making for a good plot.

The author touched on too many subjects, characters and cities, making it difficult to concentrate on one. I enjoyed the scientific aspects and the geographic areas of the book more than the story itself.


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Product Description
Set in a remote corner of the Roman Empire during a period of political unrest and spiritual uncertainty, Testament is a timeless story of how the holy man we know as Jesus alters forever the course of human history.
We come to know Jesus through the eyes of four dissimilar people. First is Judas, a committed political fighter who is invigorated by his discussions with Jesus about a sovereign nation for the Jews -- a place Jesus imagines as a philosophical rather than a physical kingdom. Second is Miryam of Migdal, through whom we learn of Jesus's controversial teachings as the two travel through Galilee and Jesus encourages the masses to question the teachings of the powerful few. Through Jesus' mother, Miryam, we learn of his all-too-human vulnerability, the rigor of his conviction, and his unfailing compassion. Finally, it is through Simon of Gergesa, a Syrian shepherd, that we witness the last days of the Jewish preacher as he journeys to Jerusalem. Though Simon is uncertain about how to assess Jesus' legacy, he now sees beauty where before there was none.
Covering overlapping portions of Jesus' life, Testament tells the recognizable story of the four Gospels but without recourse to miracle. The naturalism of the novel is based on extensive research and is utterly convincing, and yet there is indisputably something profound and even holy about the man and his teachings. As the novel progresses we begin to see how his story, filtered by different eyes and desires and subject to countless retellings, will be transformed into myth.
Ricci is not the first novelist to approach this central figure of western civilization, but here he accomplishes something of an entirely new order: a portrait that is historically grounded, philosophically rich, and emotionally moving and that speaks eloquently to the place and power of stories in our lives. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

Disgusting trash
It's quite obvious that the author of this book has an anti-Christian agenda. Jesus born from the rape of Mary? What?!?!? I can understand poetic license, but that is so far off the reservation as to be criminal in my estimation.

He's lucky that Christians don't declare fatwas against people like him.

If you're a Christian, don't bother getting this book unless you want to see your religion disparaged and marginalized.

Judas in a new light
I read Testament a couple of years ago and enjoyed it very much.Now, with renewed interest in the Gospels of Judas, I was reminded of Ricci's historical fiction. I especially liked the different points of view for the story of Jesus.No doubt some devout readers will see this book as blasphemy and view it on that basis.(Even my sister, who is only an occassional Catholic, at first couldn't get past the idea of the rape of Mary by a Roman soldier- although eventually she did read the whole thing.)Overall it is Ricci's talent as a writer that brings this story of the Holy Land 2,000 years ago to life.In my view, the major idea that Jesus was a charasmatic yet troubled person does not diminish the impact of his good ideas.How can you go wrong with: love each other, help those who need help, be generous and don't be afraid? What's not to like?

An extremely demeaning, dismissive view of Jesus
Nino Ricci is a skilled writer, and his description of scenery and of some of the characters is excellent. However, sooner or later, each of the narrators begins to talk like a Greek philosopher -- even the non-Jewish peasant. At times, Ricci thinks he is Charles Dickens. His description of the 10 year old Jesus running around the streets of Alexandria with his "gang" makes him sound like the Artful Dodger. I laughed out loud. All in all, Jesus doesn't seem to be the kind of person who would inspire his followers to invent a new religion, or at least a cult. He is, more or less, a nobody, who has no real mission, no plan and little purpose. I have read many versions of the life of Jesus, fictional and non-fictional, and in none of them does he seem so insignificant. Any stature that Jesus has must come from one's own knowledge of the gospels and history of the times. Without such knowledge, this Jesus is something of a bore.

Four Testaments
It is well known to most of the readers of the New Testament that each of the four evangelists, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John had different views of Jesus.Nino Ricci has chosen four other narrators, people who interacted with Jesus to tell their stories.In his stunning historical novel, he has Judas, Mary Magdalene, Mary, Jesus mother and Simon, a follower tell us how they saw and experienced Jesus.This work of imagination puts the reader in the time and place of Jesus in Galilee, Alexandria,Nazareth, Jerusalem with story lines for each that are plausible and compelling. The prose is simple because the people speak simply of their deep feelings and theirrelationships with Yeshua. I was fascinated by the alternate narrative, the interweaving of the events we take for granted, and the clear fact that no one person understood the whole of Jesus' mission. I finished the book only to reread it.The second reading was even more enjoyable. This is a masterful work and well worth every minute spent with it.

New slant on a very old story
It is certain that devout Christians will not be happy with this portrayal of the life of Jesus.Jesus is not a god, Mary is not a virgin and there is no resurrection in this story which is told in four books narrated by Judas Iscariot,Mary Magdalene, Simon of Gergesa and Mary the mother of Jesus.

I enjoyed the book as a stunning piece of historical fiction- through the character of Judas we get a view of life under the Roman occupation along with the usual toadies ready to sell out their own people.Vivid descriptions of the lakes, the fishermen and wharf areas make the countryside come to life, and most unforgettable is the magnificent temple of the Jews with the smells of blood and smoke from the animal sacrifices and tables of money changers.While I was reading "Testament" it was easy to slide into the past and imagine life in ancient times.

That anyone would be able to take the story of Jesus and put such an new slant on it is a testament to the writing skills and imagination of Nino Ricci, and to be able to make the story suspenseful is very impressive.By the same author I have also The Book of the Saints with its poetic and beautiful style of writing, then "In a Glass House" so emotional penetrating it was almost too painful to read - Mr. Ricci is one of those writers that always surprises, continuing to get better and better.

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Product Description
The second book in Ricci's award-winning Vittorio Innocente trilogy finds Vittorio arriving in Canada to travel with his half-sister to his father's haven, a farming community with ways both magical and forbidden. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Ricci produces nothing but MASTERPIECES
Unlike Lives of the Saints and Where She Has Gone, a longer period of Vittorio's life is portrayed in this book. He's 7 in the begginning and in his mid-twenties in the end. I can't think of another book that exposes theimportance of family ties as much as this one. Everyone must read it! It'sa masterpiece! There may be better trilogies than that of Ricci's, but I'mafraid I haven't read them.

Left me thinking about family ties.
More than with "The Book of Saints," this book has gotten me thinking about the ties of family and their importance.Perhaps because I found it to be a sadder book, I didn't enjoy reading it as much as"Saints," but feel it will stay with me longer.

Excellent coming of age novel.
Ricci continues to draw us into the life of young Vittorio Innocente through his colorful descriptions. The novel is not as riveting as The Lives of The Saints, but Ricci does paint an excellent picture of the italian immigrant mentality. An excellent novel, it touches on the importance of family as well as the pains and pleasures of adolescence and self-discovery. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

The best book I've read in years!!!
A book about family, passion, life, and death. About a woman who has no one left who loves her, except for her 10 year old son and the child she carries in her belly.All are agianst her and although she is about to breakdown, she stands tall and does what she believes is right for her to do.She portrays strenth, power, and braveness all in one. She is someone we would all like to be.A book that shows the cruelness of society and the cold-heartedness of family. ... Read more

Product Description
Where She Has Gone is the final installment of Nino Ricci's acclaimed Vittorio Innocente trilogy.Here we find Ricci's hero, Vittorio, strangely drawn to his half-sister, Rita.After a disturbing moment between them, he realizes that what he's been searching for is not just his sister--it's their shared history and secret burdens, which originated in a small village in Italy where Vittorio was born.A luminous portrayal of discovery and absolution, Where She Has Gone completes a haunting trilogy of the immigrant experience. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

SAMPLING THE THOUGHTS OF MOLISE (ITALY) TO CANADA IMMIGRANTS
Overall, it is possible to categorize Ricci's novel as an account of a young Italian-Canadian undergoing a severe identity crisis.The main protagonist of Ricci's novel, Victor, has returned to Toronto from a tour of duty as a teacher in a country in Africa, and is quite unsure of how to structure his future..
Ricci deftly introduces Victor and two other main characters in the novel: his half sister, Rita, and a young woman, Elena, with whom Rita has shared a major portion of her life.
Rita was born to Victor's mother, who had become pregnant while her husband, Victor's father, had been in Canada working to accumulate the funds that would allow him to bring his wife to Canada.Their mother had delivered Rita while on the ship, in passage to Canada.Following the delivery, their mother died as a result of complications of the birth.
An earlyparagraph gathers together many of the strands that provide the thrust of the narrative:
"There was also the codicil to his [their father, who had committed suicide] will that I hadn't told her about, his wish that I use my inheritance to help provide for her if she should need me to.He had neither fatheredRita nor been a father to her, had never really forgiven her for the betrayal she was the product of; but he'd carried the guilt of her to the grave.I ought to have brought the matter up now and made an end of it" (p. 4).
Though their father could not completely abrogate responsibility for the daughter of his wife, his treatment of the girl led to the intercession of a social service agency that placed Rita into the home of a family that also had adopted Elena.Their father's guilt apparently led to his having laid a heavy charge on Victor.His father had,. essentially, asked Victor to act as a channel through which some fatherly obligations to Rita might be honored.Victor's breech of the charge, then, added a deep dimension to Victor's efforts to develop a mature self identity.
Eventually, Victor's efforts to develop a mature and satisfying identity led him to return to Italy, after an interval oftwenty years since he had departed, with his then-pregnant mother, from the small town in Molise.He seems to have been driven by a vague desire to reveal the identity of the person with whom his mother had violated the traditional role of Southern Italian wife by having engaged in the ill-fated tryst.
The venture proved unsatisfactory.Among other revelations, Victor determined that he could not build an identity on the base of his family's history of connections to the people of the small town where he had spent his first years with his mother.Indeed, reactions to his mother's long ago failure to meet traditional expectations still played a part in his relationships with remnants of his family.
At the end of the novel, Victor's efforts to put an end to the turmoil of his search for an identity allow him to reach a half reasonable resolution, despite his having failed to develop a clear version of a satisfying life narrative.
The core of the novel, of course, centers on a set of constructions that were crucial to the lives of many of the participants in l'avventura.The husband of a family travels to the place, in Canada, to which the family is to emigrate, leaving behind a wife and, in many cases, children.If the marriage bond does not forestall extra-marital intimacy, how is the breech to be construed and repaired by the principals? The seriousness with which the principals must approach the Southern Italian views of the meaning of marriage permeates all of Ricci's novel. Victor, struggling with his own breech of trust, relative to his half sister, travels to Italy, haphazardly pursuing the possibility that if he understands his mother's breech, he will somehow find surcease from his own guilt.
However one might react to Ricci's entire work, he/she must appreciate the skill with which Ricci interjects descriptions of the ways that his Italian-Canadians (and the people in Molise) use their personal constructions to react to objects and events in their daily round of activities.
As one reads this text he/she regularly comes across neat analyses of the perceptions of his cast of characters, such as that given in the following passage:
"On our final approach [to Rome's Leonardo da Vinci Airport], the plan swung around to follow the shoreline.The beach there was doted with bits of colour, red, and yellow and blue, from hundreds of beach umbrellas lined up in orderly rows in the still of early morning like mock soldiers awaiting some humorous war with the sea.The umbrellas made it seem like we were arriving in a permanent holiday country, a place that had never known hardship or work, as if those of us who had fled there years before had been fooled somehow, had been packed off on our grim ocean voyages while behind us the bands played and the streamers waved in the wind." (pp. 165-166).
To fulfill a reader's expectations to be entertained,Ricci uses variations of the mystery writer's "hook." Will Victor discover the identity of the biological father of his half-sister, Rita?Will that discovery help him to understand his mother's breech of Southern Italian conventions regarding marriage bonds?Will Victor discover a positive value in his relationship to the attractive young woman who occupies one of the houses that neighbors on to the property that his grandfather had willed to him?
If a reader intends to use a literary work as a vehicle toward achieving the goal of exploring the perspectives concerning Italian emigrants and their offspring he/she would be well rewarded by reading Ricci's Where she has gone .

insightful.....................
i had originally that that this book would have contained much of the same essence that "live of the saints" had, but i was blown away by the way nino ricci ended Victor's story in "WSHG".
the bizarre fascination with his sister, and longing for a relation with her was ill mannered/nasty , but yet i still continued to finish the novel. the only tick i had about this novel was the ending. it seemed to much of an easy way out, and nino ricci should have thought of sumthing drastic happening to Victor?Vittorio

Melancholy beauty
The atmosphere Ricci creates in WHERE SHE HAS GONE is enveloped in sorrow. As the story of Victor and Rita unfolds, the deep melancholy grows.

Victor and Rita are half-siblings; Rita the product of their mother's affair in her small Italian town while her husband (Victor's father) was in Canada setting the foundation for a new life for his familyOver the course of thefirst two books in the trilogy, their mother dies after giving birth to Rita on the ocean liner bringing them to Canada, and Victor and Rita are raised together for a few years on his father's farm, until Rita is adopted by a nearby couple.

The siblings grow up and grow apart, until the opening of WHERE SHE HAS GONE,where they meet again in Toronto-Victor as a grad student/writer and Rita just starting university. The relationship they develop as adults is complicated and sad, but compelling.Ricci's language is distilled to a very simple, effective style, that suits the mood he creates beautifully.

All three books in the trilogy are highly recommended, but it's not necessary to have read the first two to be moved by the last (though I'm sure after reading WHERE SHE HAS GONE you'll want to).

Good Fiction
This is a good fictional story, well written but I like his earlier work 'Lives of the Saints' much better, fromstory development and plot prspectives.

Wow!
I was not prepared for this book. I was totally side-swiped for days after its conclusion. Mr. Ricci is a fabulous writer, and I was quite unprepared for the emotions I am feeling still.

Mr. Ricci has definitely replaced Graham Greene as my favorite author of fiction, and I am nowreading the first two books in this trilogy.Hopefully there will be manymore!

Interestingly, I live in Toronto, not far from Victor's apartment. The location and building with the fire escape are just as described in thebook. ... Read more

Product Description
Set in the Valle del Sole, a tiny village nestled in Italian Appenines, this novel tells the story of young Vittorio Innocente and of his mother, Christina, whose affair with a mysterious blue-eyed stranger abruptly shatters the innocence of Vittorio's childhood. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (8)

Good read
i had to read this book for an english assignement. once i got through the book i couldn't belive how good it was.

Book of Saints brings a small Italian town to life
On my recent trip to Italy I decided to bring one reading book...I chose Book of Saints.Relaxing on a hot afternoon in my parents'hometown in southern Italy with Book of Saints in my lap, the story simply came tolife; the small town, the people, the traditions, the gossip. It's thestory of a woman who's husband left for Canada to seek employment.Left athome with their son and her father, she tries to stay happy.But certainsituations put her in a bad light and soon the townspeople begin to avoidher and gossip about her.Subborn and proud, she refuses to make amendswith the townspeople, which only serves to isolate her even more.Herchoices affect her father and son as they too suffer the wrath of thetownspeople.The choices that she will finally make will surprise you. Let's just say that she's a very strong and independent woman. I'm lookingforward to the rest of Ricci's trilogy.

Definitely Immigrant Literature
The story is poetically written. It is an immigrant literature piece, outlining the realities of moving from your home country to the unknown. It does end abruptly, and is not a "fluffy" story. However, Riccidoes reveal the truths of his own life in the novel, serious and sad. Notfor the faint of heart, but very well done.

Definitely Immigrant Literature
The story is poetically written. It is an immigrant literature piece, outlining the realities of moving from your home country to the unknown. It does end abruptly, and is not a "fluffy" story. However, Riccidoes reveal the truths of his own life in the novel, serious and sad. Notfor the faint of heart, but very well done.

Wonderful!
I really enjoyed reading this book and finished it in a matter of days.A wonderful look at an Italian village, its people, their superstitions, alliances and lifestyles.It was particularly interesting for the way itwas told, through the eyes of a young, naive boy.Looking forward to newtitles from this author. ... Read more

Product Description
This stunning collection of photographs documents the lives of Italian immigrants to Toronto, Canada. Awardwinning photographer and cultural historian Vincenzo Pietropaolo has spent much of his life taking photographs inside the tightly knit ItalianCanadian community. While the images he captures in this book are part of the fabric of life in Toronto, they also transcend the specificity of place to evoke the lives of immigrants in cities around the world. With a foreword by Nino Ricci, and context provided by the photographer, Not Paved with Gold pays tribute to the full spectrum of the immigrant experience. PHOTOGRAPHER: Pietropaolo, Vincenzo ... Read more

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Set in the Valle del Sole, a village nestled in the folds of the Italian Apennines, Lives of the Saints tells the story of young Vittorio Innocente, and his mother, Cristina, whose affair with a blue-eyed stranger abruptly shatters the innocence of Vittorio's childhood. As he tries to piece together the truth of his mother's crime, we discover through Vittorio's eyes the underside of Valle del Sole's pastoral calm, the age-old superstitions and fears, vestiges of a pagan past, beneath the villagers' veneer of Catholicism, and the hypocrisy and malice beneath their self-rightousness. ... Read more

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On June 4, 1989, the day of the Tiananmen Square massacre, DuoDuo left China for England, and bore witness to the atrocities he had seen. Since then, he has lived in exile. Crossing the Sea shows the development of his work from the first days of the Cultural Revolution to the clamping down that led to the events of June 1989 and to his exile. It is, without a doubt, the best selection of this important poet's work to appear to date, in any translation. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Cover versions?
Any amateur of Duo Duo's poetry will notice at first glance that many of the titles and and even more of the lines of this collection of Duo Duo's poems betray a remarkable resemblance to those in a previous anthology translated by Gregory Lee and John Cayley, "Looking Out From Death" published by Bloomsbury in 1989. A number of translations, in particular that of "I've always delighted in a shaft of light in the depth of night", also resemble Lee's tranlations in The Manhattan Review, translations which antedate Robinson's book. The provenance of translations into English are notoriously difficult to police. However, this book fulfilled the function of making available Duo Duo's poetry in English translation once the Bloomsbury book was out of print. Happily, a new collection of Duoduo's poems translated by Gregory Lee, including most of the poems appearing in Robinson's book, but also many of those written by the poet subsequently, has now been published by Zephyr Press under the title "The Boy Who Catches Wasps". Lee's translations have once again given us an immediacy of access to what Kazim Ali in the Electronic Poetry Review (issue number 4 ...) calls Duo's Duo's "brilliant work".

Cover versions?
Any amateur of Duo Duo's poetry will notice at first glance that many of the titles and and even more of the lines of this collection of Duo Duo's poems betray a remarkable resemblance to those in a previous anthology translated by Gregory Lee and John Cayley, "Looking Out From Death" published by Bloomsbury in 1989. A number of translations, in particular that of "I've always delighted in a shaft of light in the depth of night", also resemble Lee's tranlations in The Manhattan Review, translations which antedate Robinson's book. The provenance of translations into English are notoriously difficult to police. However, this book fulfilled the function of making available Duo Duo's poetry in English translation once the Bloomsbury book was out of print... ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Tremendous fiction
Morley Callaghan is one of the finest Canadian writers I have come across. His themes may not always appeal to a broad readership, since they are sometimes fairly parochial in nature, giving him a wide claim to being agenuine "Canadian" author (rather than North-American). However,he is a truly international writer as well, of a calibre I've not oftenencountered. Perhaps his career didn't quite have the impact of ErnestHemingway's (with whom he was quite friendly in the thirties) or GrahamGreene's, but the quality of his work puts him very much in their class."A Time for Judas" is a good example of this. Callaghan takes us,in a Gore Vidal-like fashion, back to the time of Christ and recounts amarvellous tale set in and around Jerusalem. It is not only well-writtenand exciting, but as a purported account of the "true" events ofthe time (left to be discovered on papyrus centuries later), it falls intoa sort of mystery tradition which is very hard to pull off, from a writingpoint of view. With complete confidence, Callaghan tells a tale which willthrill and perhaps even enlighten you, and have you seeking out more of hiswork. Fortunately, there is a relative abundance so find this one if youcan. ... Read more

Product Description
Love him or hate him, Pierre Trudeau has marked us all. The man whose motto was "reason over passion" managed to arouse in Canadians the fiercest of passions of every hue, ones that even today cloud our view of him and of his place in history. Acclaimed novelist Nino Ricci takes as his starting point the crucial role Trudeau played in the formation of his own sense of identity to look at how Trudeau expanded us as a people, not in spite of his contradictions but because of them. ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document is an article from Catholic Insight, published by Catholic Insight on March 1, 2005. The length of the article is 602 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Assumption University honours Stephen Lewis and Nino Ricci.(Canada)
Publication: Catholic Insight (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 1, 2005
Publisher: Catholic Insight
Volume: 13Issue: 3Page: 33(1)

Distributed by Thomson Gale ... Read more

Product Description
This digital document, covering the life and work of Nino Ricci, is an entry from Contemporary Authors, a reference volume published by Thompson Gale. The length of the entry is 2162 words. The page length listed above is based on a typical 300-word page. Although the exact content of each entry from this volume can vary, typical entries include the following information:

• Place and date of birth and death (if deceased)
• Family members
• Education
• Professional associations and honors
• Employment
• Writings, including books and periodicals
• A description of the author's work
• References to further readings about the author

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When young Vittorio Innocente's mother, Cristina, is bitten by a snake during an encounter with a blue-eyed stranger in the family barn, the superstitions and prejudices rampant in their small Italian town immediately roil to the surface. But the worst is yet to come for the independent-minded Cristina. Eight months pregnant and unable to abide her treatment in the village any longer, Cristina books a passage to Canada for herself and Vittorio, although it will not be to join her irascible husband Mario, who sailed there when Vittorio was an infant. A national bestseller for seventy-five weeks, Lives of the Saints won the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction, the Books in Canada First Novel Award, and the Bressani Prize. It is the first novel in the Vittorio Innocente Trilogy. ... Read more

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Product Description
Lives of the Saints was first published in 1990 by Cormorant Books to universal acclaim. It was a national bestseller for seventy-five weeks, received the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Smithbooks/Books in Canada First Novel Prize, and the Bressani Prize, and was adapted into a CBC miniseries starring Sophia Loren.For the twentieth anniversary of the novel’s release, Cormorant is proud to present a hardcover commemorative edition of Lives of the Saints, featuring new materials, including chapters previously excised and a travel essay by Nino Ricci, illustrations by Tony Urquhart, and an introduction by Steven Hayward. ... Read more