Bøger udgivet af Anvil Press

Burqa of Skin is a dense collection of writings from Nelly Arcan, channelling harrowing disenchantment and indignation. From her very first novel, Putain (Seuil, 2001), Arcan shook the literary landscape with her flamboyant lyricism and her preoccupations with such recurring themes as our culture's vertiginous obsession with youth, and its reverse: the draw of death. Now beyond the ripples of scandal Arcan's work has caused, here are the last echoes of her work, and it is as stunning as it is brief. Burqa of Skin, with its gruesome title, catapults her work into contemporary debates on culture and gender. The book collects three previously unpublished works: "e;The Dress,"e; "e;The Child in the Mirror"e; and "e;Shame."e; The first two are written in the first person, in that turbulent, suffocating language that was Arcan's singular brand, that of a writer on the edge. In the third text, she analyses with inexhaustible ferocity her humiliating experience on the set of a TV talk show. Two lesser-known non-fiction pieces are also included in this collection: a reflection on speed dating and a column published in 2004 titled "e;Suicide Can Be Harmful to Your Health."e;Praise for Burqa of Skin:"e;A masterpiece, a rare and poisonous plant whose posthumous publication makes [the work] all the more striking."e; (Juliette Einhorn, Le Figaro)"e;... When Arcan's writing is at its sharpest-as it nearly always was, and as Melissa Bull's translation convincingly conveys-practically every sentence can serve as a jumping-off point for sustained contemplation and/or heated debate. ..."e; (The Montreal Gazette)"e;... the writing is genuine and lived, giving an almost real-time picture of the author's philosophical wrestlings ... stylishly translated by Melissa Bull Fantastically intelligent, always trying to second-guess how a woman should be, Arcan finds death the only answer to her predicament. In style and emotion-and honesty-her work is a much closer cousin to Edouard Leve's Suicide than to the archness of Belle de Jour or Catherine Millet. The best way to absorb Arcan's work is to read it in chronological order, and then to lament that the titles of her work-Whore, Hysteric, Breakneck, Exit-so succinctly and poignantly summarize the short life and hard-won philosophy of this exceptional writer."e; (The Times Literary Supplement)

ReLit Long Shortlist, 2015Winner, Type Books AwardIn this daring act of self-examination and confession, the late novelist Nelly Arcan explores the tortured end of a love affair. All the wrong signals were there from the start, but still, she could not help falling. More than a portrait of an affair gone wrong, Hysteric is a chronicle of life among the twenty- and thirty-somethings, a life structured by text messages, missed cell phone calls, the latest DJs and Internet porn. When the writer's aunt read her tarot cards, no predictions for her future ever appeared. This tale, an astounding feat of literary realism, shares the story of a woman who loses her identity in a man in hopes of finding love. Told in the same voice that made her first novel Whore an international success, Nelly Arcan manages to answer the challenges she set down for herself in her previous books.Praise for Hysteric:"e;She writes from a place that is both deeply embodied and highly intellectual-if someone's womb really did end up on their brain, and that person then wrote a book, it might read something like Hysteric. English readers are lucky to have access to more of Arcan's brains and guts, and this translation is hopefully a herald of growing appreciation for a uniquely talented and brutally brave writer."e; (Montreal Review of Books)"e;Hysteric is a raw stroke of wild love that explores desire and memory, fear and love, a novel that leaves the lights on for its readers, hurts as much as it haunts, and brings a much-needed philosophy to the genre of urban literary fiction."e; (The Georgia Straight)One of the Telegraph Journal's Most Anticipated Books of 2014Praise for Nelly Arcan: "e;... With the publication of Breakneck this month (A Ciel ouvert, 2007), the small Canadian publisher Anvil Press concludes its project of publishing all of Arcan's novels in translation. ... Fantastically intelligent, always trying to second-guess how a woman should be, Arcan finds death the only answer to her predicament. In style and emotion-and honesty-her work is a much closer cousin to Edouard Leve's Suicide than to the archness of Belle de Jour or Catherine Millet. The best way to absorb Arcan's work is to read it in chronological order, and then to lament that the titles of her work-Whore, Hysteric, Breakneck, Exit-so succinctly and poignantly summarize the short life and hard-won philosophy of this exceptional writer."e; (The Times Literary Supplement)

Poetry. Mark Laba's second full-length poetry collection--his first in seventeen years--recreates the structure of the old variety shows he watched on TV as a child. Much of the imagery plays across the broad spectrum of these popular cultural tropes, albeit many lost or forgotten in the vault of broadcast history. In THE INFLATABLE LIFE, the reader will find a little singing, a little dancing, a little drama, a little comedy, a little experimentation, all rooted in a veritable grab-bag of far-ranging influences. Laba draws on everything from gritty pulp fiction to Borscht Belt humour, from dime-store ventriloquism to twelve-cent comic books (the long poem Tolstoy's Leech Farm is riddled with Laba's own comic drawings). He hurls these surprising and sometimes shocking vaudeville narratives from the peak of the Jewish Alps, and even his most extreme language experiments entertain. Some may call these surreal poems literary atrocities, while others hail them as lyricism for an impossible century--but if Mark Laba didn't write these poems, no one else would.

Fiction. Asian & Asian American Studies. 2017 Foreword INDIES Finalist, Historical (Adult Fiction). 1940s Vancouver. The Japanese have just bombed Pearl Harbour and racial tension is building in Vancouver. The rcmp are rounding up suspicious young men, and fishing boats and property are soon seized from Steveston fishers; internment camps in BC's interior are only months away. Daniel Sugiura, a young reporter for the New Canadian, the only Japanese-Canadian newspaper allowed to keep publishing during the war, narrates THE THREE PLEASURES. The story is told through three main characters in the Japanese community: Watanabe Etsuo, Morii Etsuji and Etsu Kaga, the Three Pleasures. Etsu in Japanese means pleasure; the term is well-suited to these three. Morii Etsuji, the Black Dragon boss, controls the kind of pleasure men pay for: gambling, drink and prostitution -- the pleasures of the flesh. Watanabe Etsuo, Secretary of the Steveston Fishermen's Association, makes a deal with the devil to save his loved ones. In the end, he suffers for it and never regains the pleasures of family. And there is Etsu Kaga, a Ganbariya of the Yamato Damashii Group, a real Emperor worshipper. His obsession becomes destructive to himself and all involved with him. He enjoys the pleasure of patriotism until that patriotism becomes a curse. THE THREE PLEASURES is an intimate and passionate novel concerning an unsightly and painful period in Canada's history.

Fiction. Nathaniel G. Moore follows up his 2014 ReLit Award win for SAVAGE 1986-2011 (Anvil Press, 2013) with a diverse collection of short fiction, his first, JETTISON, featuring stories which dangle somewhere between horror and romance. Jaws explores a father's desire to over-share the erotic origins of his children's Aunt Louise; Blade Runner uncovers the darkest and most hilarious aspects of dating by delineating the psych ward politics surrounding a male mental patient with five girlfriends who takes apart his bed when they visit; in A Higher Power, readers are introduced to a brave woman in recovery who shares a story about a time when all she could think about was Prime Minister Paul Martin and would do anything to crash charity dance-a-thons he might be attending; in Son of Zodiac, Moore captures the ache of a life-spanning meltdown in the painfully polite confessions of a man who believes his father was the Zodiac Killer. Be grateful as you witness a portrait of vulgar torment when a young woman is given an English professor action figure for Christmas (Professor Buggles). Each of these stories is an all-inclusive getaway to hilarity and emotional atonement. JETTISON is an all-you-can-eat buffet of literary invention: you'll be so glad you got an invite.

Fiction. Did you ever get to thinking that down on your luck isn't just an expression? And that what we need here is a bigger statement? Something that adequately describes the scope of the situation? Like when your ex-wife spends all of her time angrier than a five-dollar pistol at everything on the planet, but mostly at you--well, really only at you, and she brings back your record collection but she sets fire to it on your porch and the flames spread to your house and that just proves what you've said all along; that she is crazier than a box of frogs. SKIN HOUSE is a story about two guys who end up in the same bar they started out in. Maybe they're slightly better off than they were at the start. Or maybe not. One has a girlfriend though. They both have a little extra cash, enough to order nachos whenever they want to without going through their pockets first. They're not dead, and that's something right there. And they're not arrested, which is the quite surprising part.

ReLit Long Shortlist, 2015Finalist, Hugh MacLennan Prize for FictionWinner, National Magazine Award, Silver Medal for Humour, for the story "e;It Seems Like Sex is a Weird Thing That Used to Happen to Me,"e; from I'm Not Scared of You or AnythingThe characters in I'm not Scared of You or Anything are invigilators, fake martial arts experts, buskers, competitive pillow fighters, drug runners, and, of course, grad students. This collection of comedic short stories and exploratory texts is the ninth book by the critically acclaimed and award-winning author Jon Paul Fiorentino. Deftly illustrated by Maryanna Hardy, these texts ask important questions, like: How does a mild mannered loser navigate the bureaucratic terrain of exam supervision? What happens when you replace the text of Christian Archie comics with the text of Hlne Cixous? And, most important of all, what would it be like ifMr. Spock was a character in the HBO series Girls?Illustrated throughout by the wonderful, full colour artwork of Maryanna Hardy!Praise for I'm Not Scared of You or Anything:Book of the Week, Librairie Drawn & Quarterly Bookstore"e;This book leapt up out of the box. It is an outrageously funny book-deadpan. The prose is sharply sliced, clean, and precise. Fiorentino is a master stylist writing from a broad range of interest, drawing on a well of compassion."e; (The Hugh MacLennan Award for Fiction Jury)"e;I'm sure something scares Jon Paul Fiorentino, and maybe it drives him toward the deadpan magic he wields so masterfully in these pages. This is a daring and funny collection."e; (Sam Lipsyte)"e;Fiorentino smartly and brightly facilitates the reader's journey into his mind. He has a talent for pointing to profound topics on being and belonging, evoking empathy in the reader, and getting a laugh at the same time. The author does as Andy Kaufman did when, performing as Mighty Mouse, he said, 'I'm not sure if you're laughing at me or with me.' And everybody really laughed."e; (The Montreal Review of Books)"e;Perhaps this is a glimpse at what the Internet would be like if people were much smarter, much funnier, and not horrible. You don't have to like short stories to like I'm Not Scared of You or Anything. Anyone who has a pulse and a healthy love of chaos will get something out of this."e; (5 out of 5) (The Other Press)Most Anticipated Fiction selection, 49th Shelf

Originally published in 2014, IN THE SLENDER MARGIN was enthusiastically received and applauded for its respectful sensitivity in dealing with a subject that is still, to many, an avoidable topic of conversation: death and dying. Using her 20+ years' experience working as a palliative care counsellor in a hospice as a springboard for exploration, Joseph probes our collective knowledge of that final life experience that we all must face.Intimately personal and wise, this award-winning poet gives us a deep and profound musing, a "wise and lyrical meditation" on the slender margin, that mysterious slip of geography between life and death."IN THE SLENDER MARGIN is intended as an exploration rather than a balm or solace, though it will no doubt be those things for some people. Its resonance comes, rather, from its intelligent open-endedness, its unflinching, simultaneous embrace of death's reality and persistent mystery."--Globe and Mail"A literate, free-association meditation on the final fact of life."--Kirkus Reviews"Intricate and beautiful . . . Provides an intimate language for grief and makes death a site of wonder as much as pain. . . . In her careful prose, her encounters with the dead, dying, and mourning take on a kind of grace."--National PostLiterary Nonfiction.

Literary Nonfiction. Canadian History. BC Books for Everybody selection. PRIVATE GRIEF, PUBLIC MOURNING is a historical investigation of mourning sites and practices within the context of the province of British Columbia. The authors are concerned, primarily, with the rise of the roadside death memorial in the late twentieth century. They argue that RDMs are not a marginal, quirky phenomenon but part of a longer and complex story about the meaning of both death and grieving, one more thread in a long tapestry of public exhibitions of grief that serve to announce to the watching world who we are. PRIVATE GRIEF, PUBLIC MOURNING is an important contribution to the study of vernacular and popular culture in British Columbia. It provides an insightful, sensitive, yet rigorous treatment of a delicate topic. Historians, geographers, and anthropologists of British Columbia will want to have this book on their shelves, and its images, accessible prose, and familiar topic also make it of interest to a broader, non-academic audience.--BC Studies A catalogue of the form and evolution of grieving rituals and associated public memorials in BC's history, with a particular emphasis on the common, diverse and often whimsical roadside memorial.--Vancouver Review With vivid images of a variety of different shrines and monuments built across BC, this book helps to delve into the human emotion of grief and why taking it into a public space can provide such comfort to one mourning individual and such discomfort to others.--Broken Pencil