
'Membering
Austin Clarke(Author)
Dundurn Group Ltd (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 15. October 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
496 pages
978-1-4597-3034-2 (ISBN)
Description
2016 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature - Longlisted
2016 RBC Taylor Prize - Longlisted
The unforgettable memoir of Giller Prize-winning author and poet Austin Clarke, called "Canada's first multicultural writer."
Austin Clarke is a distinguished and celebrated novelist and short-story writer. His works often centre around the immigrant experience, of which he writes with humour and compassion, happiness and sorrow. In 'Membering, Clarke shares his own experiences growing up in Barbados and moving to Toronto to attend university in 1955 before becoming a journalist. With vivid realism he describes Harlem of the '60s, meeting and interviewing Malcolm X and writers Chinua Achebe and LeRoi Jones. Clarke went on to become a pioneering instructor of Afro-American Literature at Yale University and inspired a new generation of Afro-American writers.
Clarke has been called Canada's first multicultural writer. Here he eschews a traditional chronological order of events and takes the reader on a lyrical tour of his extraordinary life, interspersed with thought-provoking meditations on politics and race. Telling things as he 'members them.
2016 RBC Taylor Prize - Longlisted
The unforgettable memoir of Giller Prize-winning author and poet Austin Clarke, called "Canada's first multicultural writer."
Austin Clarke is a distinguished and celebrated novelist and short-story writer. His works often centre around the immigrant experience, of which he writes with humour and compassion, happiness and sorrow. In 'Membering, Clarke shares his own experiences growing up in Barbados and moving to Toronto to attend university in 1955 before becoming a journalist. With vivid realism he describes Harlem of the '60s, meeting and interviewing Malcolm X and writers Chinua Achebe and LeRoi Jones. Clarke went on to become a pioneering instructor of Afro-American Literature at Yale University and inspired a new generation of Afro-American writers.
Clarke has been called Canada's first multicultural writer. Here he eschews a traditional chronological order of events and takes the reader on a lyrical tour of his extraordinary life, interspersed with thought-provoking meditations on politics and race. Telling things as he 'members them.
Reviews / Votes
[I]t is difficult to think of another Canadian writer so equipped through experience and sensibility - and graciousness, it must be said - to trace the attempts, stuttering at times, that Canada has made from the 1960s onward to accommodate diversity. * Globe and Mail * [a] brilliant free-range style of writing, which is enfolded in discussions of ideas, interaction with other writers and fragments of [Clarke's] own memories and reflections of 'membering. * Literary Review of Canada * [W]hat is most evident throughout 'Membering is Clarke's voice, which is rich, engaging, and - to use the author's own word - singular. * Quill & Quire * A magnificent account of a writer's life. -- Globe and Mail Clarke's voice ... is rich, engaging, and - to use the author's own word - singular. * Quill & Quire *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Toronto
Canada
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 225 mm
Width: 149 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
658 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4597-3034-2 (9781459730342)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Person
Austin Clarke is one of Canada's foremost authors, whose work includes ten novels, six short-story collections, three memoirs, and two collections of poetry. His novel The Polished Hoe won the 2002 Giller Prize. Clarke is a member of the Order of Canada, holds four honorary doctorates, and has been awarded the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, the W.O. Mitchell Prize, the Casa de las Americas Prize, and the Martin Luther King Jr. Award for Excellence in Writing, among others. In his fifty-year career he has worked as a journalist, a professor, and a cultural attache in Washington D.C. He lives in Toronto.
Content
1 The Little Black Englishmen
2 The Court Martial
3 Toranno!... Toranno!... Toranno!...
4 1960s Toronto
5 The CBC Stagehand
6 UEJesus Christ, boy! You is a running-fool, a race horse!Y
7 Christmas, 1960
8 Timmins and Kirkland Lake
9 Looking for "Colour"
10 Harlem, 1963
11 Looking for Brother James and Brother Malcolm
12 Aftermath
13 Election Campaign, 1977
14 Georgia on My Mind
15 A Walk from Asquith Avenue
16 Mother's Precepts and Commandments
17 The Green Door House
18 "Invisibility"
19 The Culture of Chains
20 Allies
21 Audience with the Queen
22 The "Loyalty of Negritude" in Sport
23 "A Writer's Life"
24 Power Games
25 Yale
26 Aquarius
27 The Old Boy
28 Home
Epilogue
Afterword
Credits
2 The Court Martial
3 Toranno!... Toranno!... Toranno!...
4 1960s Toronto
5 The CBC Stagehand
6 UEJesus Christ, boy! You is a running-fool, a race horse!Y
7 Christmas, 1960
8 Timmins and Kirkland Lake
9 Looking for "Colour"
10 Harlem, 1963
11 Looking for Brother James and Brother Malcolm
12 Aftermath
13 Election Campaign, 1977
14 Georgia on My Mind
15 A Walk from Asquith Avenue
16 Mother's Precepts and Commandments
17 The Green Door House
18 "Invisibility"
19 The Culture of Chains
20 Allies
21 Audience with the Queen
22 The "Loyalty of Negritude" in Sport
23 "A Writer's Life"
24 Power Games
25 Yale
26 Aquarius
27 The Old Boy
28 Home
Epilogue
Afterword
Credits