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Dionne Brand’s hypnotic, urgent long poem – her first book of poetry in four years, is about the bones of fading cultures and ideas, about the living museums of spectacle where these bones are found. At the centre of Ossuaries is the narrative of Yasmine, a woman living an underground life, fleeing from past actions and regrets, in a perpetual state of movement. She leads a solitary clandestine life, crossing borders actual (Algiers, Cuba, Canada), and timeless. Cold-eyed and cynical, she contemplates the periodic crises of the contemporary world. This is a work of deep engagement, sensuality, and ultimate craft from an essential observer of our time and one of the most accomplished poets writing today. ... Read more

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Written with lyrical fire in a chorus of vividly rendered voices, Dionne Brand's second novel is an epic of the African diaspora across the globe. It begins in 1824 on Trinidad, where Marie-Ursule, queen of a secret slave society called the Sans Peur Regiment, plots a mass suicide. The end of the Sans Peur is also the beginning of a new world, for Marie-Ursule cannot kill her young daughter, Bola -- who escapes to live free and bear a dynasty of descendants who spill out across the Caribbean, North America, and Europe. Haunted by a legacy of passion and oppression, the children of Bola pass through two world wars and into the confusion, estrangement, and violence of the late twentieth century. "[Brand has] a lush and exuberant style that may put some readers in mind of Toni Morrison or Edwidge Danticat." -- William Ferguson New York Times Book Review; "A delicately structured, beautifully written novel infused with rare emotional clarity." -- Julie Wheelwright Independent (London); "Rich, elegiac, almost biblical in its rhythms . . . One of the essential works of our times." -- The Globe & Mail (Toronto) ... Read more

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A Poetic Account of Six Generations
A poetic account of six generations born from an act of rebellion and set free into the world, this novel begins on Trinidad as Marie Ursule plots a mass suicide of fellow slaves and ensures the escape of her "vanityand joy," little Bola.Marie Ursule's descendants, born of Bola andher lust for different men, dash off to disparate lives, which Branddescribes in separate, always lyrical, chapters.Although Brand'srepetitive use of certain phrases can wear thin, she shows a brilliantcommand of the emotional side of language. I would not recommend this bookto casual readers because its emphasis on language and theme, and not plot,might disappoint them; however, this novel has much to offer serious andattentive readers.

Great, but kind of long.
I thought it was an amazing novel, very deep. I think Dionne Brand dwelled to much on simple situations in the plot, which at times made it boring, but overall extremely well written ... Read more

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Acclaimed by Adrienne Rich as "fierce, sensuous . . . a work of great beauty and moral imagination," In Another Place, Not Here tells of two contemporary Caribbean women who find brief refuge in each other on an island in the midst of political uprising. Elizete, dreaming of running to another place to escape the harshness of her daily life on the island, meets Verlia, an urban woman in constant flight who has returned to her island birthplace with hopes of revolution. Their tumultuous story moves between city and island, past and future, fantasy and reality.Amazon.com Review
This is poet, essayist, and film-maker Dionne Brand's firstnovel.The same sensuous language and imagery that informs her otherwork is present in this story of two contemporary Caribbean women.Elizete and Verlia appear to be opposites.Elizete is a poor islanderwho dreams of escaping to a life of freedom and prosperity in a city.Verlia is a jaded Canadian who leaves Toronto to return to her islandhomeland where she hopes to find revolution and authenticity.Eachwoman sees her fantasy in the other, comparing their urban and rurallifestyles, material wealth and poverty, and different spiritualities.While this book is certainly about the differences between the twowomen's lives, it is also very much about the power of our fantasiesand how we project onto people the things we want to see.Brand'ssupple, poetic prose is well-suited for her many-textured subject.--Rebecca Brown ... Read more

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A Post-Colonial work about race, oppression, and power...
I just finished reading this one for a class.It is a very complex novel that I think would benefit from multiple readings.The novel is extremely discriptive and tells the story of two women from different parts of the world and how their paths ultimately cross.Brand's prose is intricately woven with a combination of confusion, wonder, and anger that emminates through fresh use of voice and perception.The book illustrates the impact of the imperialism and the slave-trade in the Carribean and takes place in both the islands and Ontario.I recomend this one but caution that it is a book that takes effort to really get into it. ... Read more

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A moving collection from one of the foremost Canadian writers of her generation. ... Read more

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Will the Past Let Us Be
In Dionne Brand's ambitious novel, What We All Long For, the reader is introduced to four Toronto 20-something characters as they explore issues of race and identity and provide friendship to each other. All of the main characters are children of immigrant parents who migrated to Toronto for a "better" life. And while they have agreed to never talk about family, it is their family histories that have shaped who they are and contribute to their identity issues.

Tuyen, a lesbian artist of Vietnamese parents, struggles to be a loyal daughter and sister but wants to be accepted for who she is. Oku struggles with showing his poetic side and walking on the darker side of the law, anything to be out from under the thumb of his Jamaican father. Jackie, a biracial woman, cannot move forward as she feels committed to saving her brother when he does not want to be saved. And Carla is weighed down by her parents not being able to follow through on the dreams that they brought with them from Halifax.

Brand does an excellent job of developing the characters and evoking the essence of Toronto. The reader will see Toronto through the eyes of these young, urban people but the storyline felt stifled as action is slowed to wait on the characters being developed. At times, the reader is left hanging when the storyline of one character quickly changes to another character.

The ending was an unexpected twist as the reader did not see it coming. But it is this unforeseen ending that causes the families to meet. But, alas, the moment comes and goes too quickly for the reader and the story is over.

I recommend this book to fans of Dionne Brand and readers who like the themes of race, identity, and immigration.

Reviewed by Beverly
APOOO BookClub
July 12, 2009

A poignant effort
Dionne Brand takes the youth of Toronto and brings them to vivid life in this novel about several twenty-somethings living in the city and the way their lives do - and do not - meet.

I felt the main characters to be well-developed and interesting, though some of the secondary characters could have had a bit more depth to them. The motifs of youthfulness, race, and what it is to live in a city were brought to bear skillfully, as was the over-arching theme of longing.

All in all, I enjoyed this book.

Angsty twenty-somethings in Toronto
Four twenty-somethings in Toronto have an agreement to not talk about family. Yet, each is so strangled tied by perceptions about their own upbringing and family, and so haunted by what they long for, that they barely function on a day-to-day basis. Tuyen, a lesbian and artist, and her brother, Binh, is haunted by the older brother (Quy) lost when the family fled Vietnam. Carla's biracial and burdened by responsibility for her jailed brother Jamal. Their father was forced to take them in after their mother, his mistress, committed suicide, but responsibility and love can't be forced. Oku lives at home under the disdainful glare of his Jamaican father. Having dropped out of college, Oku's days are filled with hiding it from his father, and his nights spent hiding from a life where he can't find purpose. He's sure if only Jackie will love him, he will find all he's looking for. But Jackie, a black woman from Halifax, is busy running her clothing store and mourning for her parents' lost way of life. Interspersed with Quy's story about survival, when Quy and Jamal return home, the families meet and tragedy occurs. And that's where the story ends. After wading through pages of back-story, the novel ends right when it could get interesting--exploring the fallout of the tragic meeting.

Reviewed by Jamie Engle

Something I Longed for
Something I long for in WHAT WE ALL LONG FOR is the passionate engagement with a love of solitude and the genius with language that you find in so many of Brand's other books, for instance this inspired description of when she's living alone in her little house far out in the country in THE MAP TO THE DOOR OF NO RETURN, where she lives among neighbours who love "country music's lonesome and outlaw tenors" and where she scrutinizes "each window's drama of trees and sky", and on summer nights lies "in the very, very dark of the country, the smell of pine and cedar around me, the very quiet of the bush pressing in, and I listen till I fall asleep."

Or when she meditates on the relevance and nature of identity, on her Caribbean childhood, on flame trees that are "at their torrid best in the dry season."

But in WHAT WE ALL LONG FOR I found the novel's landscape (cityscape) too noisy, too populated, too busy for the arid world she ordinarily gives such a depth of emotion to.

Senior Teenagers
I think that Dionne Brand has forgotten what it is like to be young. She makes the young characters in her book sound like wistful, whiny granmas and grandpas. She misses the immediacy.
For a better read, pick up larissa lai's When Fox is a Thousand, which manages to capture the vital, grittines thsi book tries for. ... Read more

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A Map to the Door of No Return is a timely book that explores the relevance and nature of identity and belonging in a culturally diverse and rapidly changing world. It is an insightful, sensitive and poetic book of discovery.

Drawing on cartography, travels, narratives of childhood in the Caribbean, journeys across the Canadian landscape, African ancestry, histories, politics, philosophies and literature, Dionne Brand sketches the shifting borders of home and nation, the connection to place in Canada and the world beyond.

The title, A Map to the Door of No Return, refers to both a place in imagination and a point in history -- the Middle Passage. The quest for identity and place has profound meaning and resonance in an age of heterogenous identities.

In this exquisitely written and thought-provoking new work, Dionne Brand creates a map of her own art. ... Read more

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Seven poets of diverse region, gender, sexual orientation, race, and generation. Seven poets linked by experiment and opposition. Robert Kroetsch discusses postmodernism's history, Fred Wah talks about ethnic hybridity, and Dionne Brand muses on postcolonial struggle and community. Erin Mouré encourages "excessiveness" while Daphne Marlatt speaks of "salvaging". On writing, poetics, and culture, Marie Annharte Baker and Jeff Derksen share their personal perspectives and experiences. Poets Talk brings new insights to the value of inspiration, imagination, and poetic re-invention. ... Read more

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Wish They Were Here
What a terrific book, and one that should be more widely known on this side of the border, for even though all the poets and both the interviewers are Canadians born and bred, the questions they address are ones that we need to listen to, and very few of us here in the USA are bothering with their construction or phenomenological coming into being.The two interviewers sometimes act as a tag team, and at other times (like Charlie's Angels) split up for more effective coverage and/or investigation.For example, on her own Susan Rudy interviews Fred Wah, perhaps because her partner, Pauling Butling, is married to Wah and maybe wouldn't be unbiassed or something?Although Rudy also shares a certain I don't know, easy familiarity with Wah that makes reading their interview sort of like listening to close country cousins kibbitz.

The book begins with a very intense interrogation of Robert Kroetsch, the venerable postmodernist about whom Rudy has written a whole volume already.Kroetsch notes that some people think he's gone too far (outside of grammar) in his "Poem for My Dead Sister," but Butling seems to scoff at such a notion, instead egging him on to prove that his work is any more difficult than, say, Gertrude Stein's.He is forced to quote individual lines from his poem and insist on their opacity, while Rudy and Butlingmurmur in the background about "Yes, you certainly make it incomprehensible in the reading, or first reading," and a certain skepticism pours through, especially in regards to Kroetsch's gender values, which are mystifying.Good work all around!I don't think that Kroetsch IS indeed as well known in the USA as the editors state in their preface to this interview, despite his having taught at Binghamton for decades.But then again, I'm o expert.

Their interview with Daphne Marlatt is equally focussed: this time they examine Marlatt's book SALVAGE, in which she digs up some of her own work and re-writes it, teasing out the threads of lesbian identity and politics that an earlier discretion or unknowing led her to obfuscate.They seem in general admiring of Marlatt's progress, although they leap at her use of the neologism "Stanzagraph."PAULINE: "What do you mean by stanzagraph?"Good question, for Marlatt was trying to let it slip by as though everyone in the world knew what a stanzagraph is.To me, it's one of those words that didn't need to be, but as Marlatt describes why she came to use it, my sympathies grew as her discourse became more intimate.Maybe that's the secret of all good interviews, they let the person come out more, the figure behind the poem.Though this is exactly what Erin Moure dislikes about interviews, as she admits, and throughout her interview she seems panicky, as though losing part of her heteronymity through having to sit still for an hour while Butling and Rudy try to pin her down.

Pauline Butling's talk with Jeff Derksen ends so abruptly I wondered if one or the other of them had to run out to put money in a parking meter.Also, it is ironic that apparently the University of Alberta couldn't afford a proof-reader to clear up some of the spelling in the book, ironic especially when the black poet Dionne Brand reproves Butling and Rudy (and all white critics and poets) for not knowing enough about black American writers, including Gayl Jones, and then the book misspells Jones' name, as though to underline the point.

But all in all a splendid edition and one longs, not for a sequel, but for a whole encylopedia of Butling and Rudy just talking about anything. ... Read more

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This is a study of women writers of the African Diaspora and their articulation of the erotic as an important aspect of human experience beyond the limits and expectations of society. Within the imaginary scope of the works of Audre Lorde, Toni Morrison, and Dionne Brand, the erotic is made manifest through rewriting narrative and poetic form. Chapter One of this title considers the task of circumventing the racism and misogyny in the building of narratives that would empower women of the African Diaspora and would articulate Black women with their humanity and erotic selfhoods intact. Chapter Two discusses how in Zami Audre Lorde's reinvention of the narrative reflects her understanding of language as a source of erotic power where one converts one's status from invisible to visible. Chapter Three discusses how Toni Morrison in Jazz reworks traditional narrative structure in order to build her vision of black existence and the erotic. Chapter Four explores how Brand dismantles the notion of a fixed definition of form and subverts literary structures in order to imagine pleasure through unfamiliar arrangements of language in the novel "At the Full and Change of the Moon".Chapter Five discusses how the erotic is a disruption of expectations of sameness and totality. ... Read more

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This classic of Canadian and Caribbean writing is set in an early 20th-century Hindu community in the Eastern Caribbean. The novel describes the perilous existence of a poor rice-growing family during the August rainy season. Their struggles to cope with illness, a drunken and unpredictable father, and the violence of the elements seem unending and relentless and culminate in what seems to be unbearable loss. Through vivid, vertiginous prose, and with brilliant economy and originality, Ladoo creates a fearful world of violation and grief in the face of which even the most despairing efforts to endure stand out as acts of raw courage. ... Read more

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Difficult Lives
Harold Sonny Laddoo lived a brief and intense life, if we are to believe the little that is known about him, publishing a handful of short stories, and two novels before he was found brutally beaten, in a drainage ditch. He died shortly after, at the age of 28.An Trinidadian of East Indian background, this first novel, NO PAIN LIKE THIS BODY,and a second, YESTERDAYS, published posthumously, is all the published work we have left from this young and brilliant writer. Historically, indentured workers from India supplied the forced labor that Emancipation "took" from Caribbean plantation owners when slavery itself was abolished in the Anglophone parts of the region, roughly from the 1830's to mid-century. The conditions under which East Indians worked were cruel, and NO PAIN LIKE THIS BODY recounts the legacy of this elemental struggle in its tale of a poor Trinidadian family during the rainy season in Trinidad.

The themes of brutality, of supertitious clinging to the old beliefs, of fate emerge in an intense day-in-the-life-of a village community. The effect is a sustained prose poem the the reader will not be able to put down once the book begins.

I highly recommend it and am saddened to see this go out of print. ... Read more

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This is a poem about the city. About a man who has visions, hovering on the edge but hating it, restless and at war with the world but wanting the peace that passeth understanding. Everything he does is half-done, except his death. When he falls, his parched spirit crying "thirsty," his family falls apart. This is a poem about Toronto, the city that’s never happened before, about waiting for a bus, standing on a corner, watching a stranger: the bank to one corner, the driving school on another, the milk store and the church. This is also about the poet, her own restless sensibility woven in and out through moments of lyric beauty, dramatic power and storytelling grace. It is written in the margins, like a medieval manuscript with shades of light and darkness. ... Read more

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beautiful language, haunting issues
Brand's book is a series of poems that forms one narrative of sorts, which explores issues of race and subject position from within the alienating and oppressive city of Toronto, Ontario.It is chilling in its poetic beauty and vibrancy. ... Read more

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A joyful, imagistic discovery of woman as speaker and subject. As a woman, a black, and a lesbian, Brand arrives at a rigorous and nakedly ruthless reclamation of the poetic. ... Read more

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"No Burden to Carry exquisitely weaves the threads of autobiography and history into flexible and meaningful relationship. Never again will I be at a loss for names of Black women who have stood at the junctions of Canadian History." - Angela Y. Davis ... Read more

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Inspired by her childhood in Trinidad, acclaimed poet and writer Dionne Brand conjures the world of the Caribbean in her first book of poetry for children. The sounds and smells of market day, the blazing sun, the joyful beat of much-awaited rain and a girl who dares to do better. These are just some of the stories and characters brought into focus in this captivating collection of poems. Originally published in 1979, these poems are an eloquent, unsparing tribute to the lives of the Caribbean people and the power of nature. Simple chants and schoolyard skipping songs alongside more sophisticated poems reveal a place of beauty and hardship where life moves in harmony with the elements. With vibrant collage paintings and poignant line drawings by Eugenie Fernandes, this new edition of Earth Magic will cast a spell over readers of all ages. ... Read more

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Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: V. S. Naipaul, Dionne Brand, Earl Lovelace, Ralph de Boissière, Wayne Brown, Robert Antoni, Lakshmi Persaud, Harold Sonny Ladoo, André Alexis, Shani Mootoo, Neil Bissoondath, Lawrence Scott, Seepersad Naipaul. Excerpt:André Alexis (born 15 Jan 1957 in Port of Spain , Trinidad and Tobago ) is a Canadian writer who grew up in Ottawa and currently lives in Toronto, Ontario . His debut novel, Childhood (1997), won the Books in Canada First Novel Award , and was a co-winner of the Trillium Award . In addition to his writing, he is a member of the editorial board of This Magazine . Bibliography Websites (URLs online) A hyperlinked version of this chapter is at Dionne Brand (born January 7, 1953) is a Canadian poet , novelist , essayist and documentarian . She was named Toronto s third Poet Laureate in September 2009. Brand is Caribbean born. Biography Dionne Brand was born in Guayaguayare , a small fishing village in Trinidad and Tobago. Immigrating to Canada in 1970, when she was 17 years old, Brand attended the University of Toronto where she earned a BA in 1975. Brand also holds a MA (1989) from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education - OISE. Currently Brand teaches at the University of Guelph . Brand frequently explores themes of gender, race, sexuality and feminism in her writing. In "Bread Out of Stone", Brand uses personal experiences and strong metaphoric language to expose racism, white male domination, injustices and the moral hypocrisies of Canada with its own assessment as being "not like the United States" As a show of support of women solidarity, Brand has participated in many anthologies and writing opposing the violent killings of Black men and women and specifically pointing out the massacre of fourteen women in Montreal and the racism and inequality experien... ... Read more

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Chapters: Cecil Foster, Dionne Brand, Rinaldo Walcott, Malcolm Gladwell, George Elliott Clarke, Dan Hill, Josiah Henson, Justice de Thézier, Frances-Anne Solomon, M. Nourbese Philip, Charles R. Saunders, Nalo Hopkinson, Orville Lloyd Douglas, Mary Ann Shadd, Lawrence Ytzhak Braithwaite, Clement Virgo, Louise Uwacu, Dany Laferrière, Chris Spence, Lawrence Hill, Stephen Williams, Austin Clarke, Annmarie Morais, Nega Mezlekia, Olive Senior, D'bi Young, Trey Anthony, Ahdri Zhina Mandiela, Jane Musoke-Nteyafas, Afua Cooper, Honor Ford-Smith, Wayde Compton, Malcolm Azania, George Boyd, Michele Clarke, Makeda Silvera, André Alexis, Djanet Sears, Mairuth Sarsfield, Angèle Bassolé-Ouédraogo, David Chariandy, Carrie Best, Didier Leclair, Robert Edison Sandiford, Kaie Kellough, Sudz Sutherland, Robert Adetuyi, Royson James. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 167. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Dionne Brand (born January 7, 1953) is a Canadian poet, novelist, essayist and documentarian. She was named Torontos third Poet Laureate in September 2009. Brand is Caribbean born. Dionne Brand was born in Guayaguayare, a small fishing village in Trinidad and Tobago. Immigrating to Canada in 1970, when she was 17 years old, Brand attended the University of Toronto where she earned a BA in 1975. Brand also holds a MA (1989) from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education - OISE. Currently Brand teaches at the University of Guelph. Brand frequently explores themes of gender, race, sexuality and feminism in her writing. In Bread Out of Stone, Brand uses personal experiences and strong metaphoric language to expose racism, white male domination, injustices and the moral hypocrisies of Canada with its own assessment as being "not like the United States" As a show of support of women solidarity, Brand has...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=251683 ... Read more