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"I'm overwhelmed."
Paige Cooper's sense of disorientation is understandable. A writer with a profile reserved for frequent readers of Canadian literary journals, she became, in a few weeks, the first coming to consensus of the year, with her first collection of stories, Zolitude (Biblioasis, 236 pages, $ 19.95). Scotiabank Giller Prize, finalist in the fiction category of the Governor General's Literary Awards and double finalist in the QWF Awards, for the Hugh MacLennan Fiction Prize and the Concordia University First Book Prize.
She does not take attention for granted.
"Whenever I think about it, I try to think of it from my perspective six years ago, while I was bursting into my life because I had to write Said the resident of Villeray, 33, last week.
The explosion that Cooper evoked herself took place at the end of a bumpy road. After growing up in Canmore, Alberta, she attended the University of British Columbia, where she was enrolled in the creative writing program, but concluded that her early efforts were inconclusive.
"I came out of this belief thinking that my writing was bad and complacent," she said. "So I tried to go live as a librarian with a mortgage, a dog and a car in Calgary. But at one point, I realized that I would be miserable forever if I did not try at least to write. In 2012, I left my job, sold everything and took the lead in Latvia. "
It is in the Baltic countries that Cooper began to work seriously on the stories that made up Zolitude. The environment of the title clearly inspires: the title's story takes its name from a dark and remote district of Riga, where a foreign graduate student is struggling with a winter depression and a relational dysfunction.
It is a scenario that can serve as a faithful representative of Cooper's narrative strategy: his heroines and heroes are often absent, underfunded, uncomfortable, in delicate states that could appear at the limit of epiphany but could just as well lead to failure. Add to that an element of fantasy that is organically born from stories, and these are stories that skillfully combine serious investigation and sensory immediacy with strangeness.
"Traveling is successful because everything is so unfamiliar," Cooper said in response to a question about his inspirations and methods. "In general, research steals me a lot – from the experiences and anecdotes around me, from what I read, from the news and how it intertwines with what interests me. I try not to do too much research and leave the factual details necessary, rather than stifling what is "okay". "
An unexpected but delicious ingredient in some of these stories is Cooper's penchant for rare and exotic words: dipterocarp, nested, judder, hippocampus. Wisely unused at the point of gimmickry, they serve as an accidental pleasure that drives the reader further into.
"Unusual words are a way to leave holes in the story, because a reader may not go for it, but simply allow the interpretation he likes to fill the void of meaning. Moreover, if a particular subject or area is rich in jargon, I am often more attracted by it, solely for the merit of the language. This morning, I was discussing with my father the conditions of logging: cutting blocks, cords, jars, mauls ".
You will find a good sample of these words in Spiderhole, a story that takes place within a group of expats in Southeast Asia. As an evocation of place, it recalls the memories of Michael Herr, Dispatches on the war in Vietnam, but with a crucial difference: the presence in the jungle of what seem to be prehistoric lizards giant.
"On this particular topic, I was interested to know how people were interested in the white male American narrative, which was repeated all the time, without the contribution of other voices," Cooper said. . "And also how all these atrocities have been trivialized as unbalanced entertainment. It's where the Jurbadic Park-style dinosaurs come in. "
Given Cooper's interest in escape, "the way he meets the human emotion and brings us back to face what we try so hard to avoid" – Zolitude fans will want to explore his first essay, Towards a Poetics of the NFL, published this summer in the online newspaper The Western.
"I liked the fact that I could not read it closely," she said of heavy sport in jargon that she began to look unexpectedly during a recent period of time. isolation and blocking of the author. "The American football seemed to be the only place I could look that did not remind me of my complicity in the fracture of the world.Of course, this is not at all true.The NFL is an institution to pray at almost every level but to talk about it as I learned it became a way for me to deal with suffering and responsibility on a larger scale. "
This micro-macro permeability is illustrated in Ryan & Irene, Irene & Ryan, a highlight of Zolitude. Drawing on Cooper's experience at a Montreal-based record label, he is developing a reflection on how "violence pbades more easily than art" – a idea that permeates the entire collection to varying degrees and preoccupies Cooper as an artist a culture that can often feel about to implode.
"I feel guilty for having the privilege of writing, often feeling unable to do so, and wondering if writing is a dignified or ethical use of a person's time," she said. "People are suffering so much. It's tempting or necessary to shut up, but writing is about being open, uncertain, vulnerable. "
For the moment, at least the traveling author discovers that the best place to pursue his vocation is Montreal.
"I have lived in most major cities in Canada and feel that all cities are hostile in a different way," she said. "I have been in Montreal for five years and I have a very bad French in rural Alberta that I am too humiliating to use, so I feel like I understand and deserve the little race of hostility in Montreal. to me. But it's the only city that does not have the impression of wanting to devour me alive, in the sense of advanced capitalist. So, I will stay until I get fired. "
Meanwhile, while she's working on her next book ("I think it's something that concerns reputation, information and fate." I thought it was a novel, but now I'm not sure "), Cooper can not help thinking about it. sudden wave of price-driven recognition.
"It was obviously not something I would have had the nerve to hope. I already felt very grateful to publish a strange book of strange news, you know? Be that as it may, the culture of literary rewards is not exactly a meritocracy. So many brilliant and deserving books are not rewarded. I have the impression that mine just won the lottery. "
From an eye catch
the Governor General's Literary Awards The winners will be announced on Tuesday, October 30th. QWF Price the gala takes place on Tuesday, November 20th at the Lion d'Or, 1676 Ontario Street East; see qwf.org for more details.
Related
And for the first time …
The literary beginnings come in different forms, but rest badured, Montreal writers continue to come. Among the many people who will join Paige Cooper in the beginners' circle this year, there are four below – such a diverse badortment of newcomers (one of them is in not so new) that we could imagine.
Reading The art and pbadion of Guido Nincheri (Vehicule Press, 236 pages, $ 24.95), you may need to remind yourself sometimes that the story told was mostly in Montreal. Nincheri, a master of stained glbad art from the Old World, has left many examples of his work not only in the churches of his adopted city, but also in places scattered throughout North America. Armed with the endearing biography and guide of Mélanie Grondin, you can pay a visit to the European selection in the manner of the legacy of a great artist, without the cost of flight.
Fighting Black Life: State Violence in Canada from Slavery to Today (Fernwood, 252 pages, $ 25) sees Robyn Maynard bring a feminist emphasis, a popular perspective and a historical overview of the subject to a topic that could not be more timely. Her book corrects effectively any lingering idea that the problems she is talking about are American concerns that stop at the border. They do not do it.
It may seem strange to think of one of our most popular media as a newcomer, but this fall marks remarkably Stanley Péan's first literary translation into English. taximan (Linda Leith Publishing, 119 pages, $ 16.95, translated by David Homel) is an epic but evocative novel. Always a non-driver, Péan relies on his vast experience in the backseat of taxis to give a kaleidoscopic view of where he had been since he arrived as an infant coming from his home. Haiti. Think of it as the report of sympathy of a Montrealer with a special connection to the Haitian diaspora and other underrepresented Quebecers.
Vanessa R. Sbadon's Yasodhara: A novel about the wife of the Buddha (Speaking Tiger, 304 pages, $ 29) is precisely what his subtitle says – on the condition that, very little known to the woman who married the prince who later became the Buddha, she leaves much room for speculation and imagination. Author of several scholarly studies on religion and mythology, Sbadon uses his first fictional work to create what deserves to be a widely read introduction to an almost unknown actor in a major historical episode.
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