No Crystal Stair is a 1997 novel by Canadian author Mairuth Sarsfield. [1] [2]
The title is a reference to the line "Life for me ain't been no crystal stair" in Langston Hughes's poem "Mother to Son".
No Crystal Stair is a coming-of-age story set in the Little Burgundy district of Montreal during the 1940s.
Widow Marion Willow works at two jobs to raise her three daughters properly. Fighting racism and sexism, Marion schools her girls in manners, English poetry and the need for an education; her elegant neighbour and rival (both women are in love with railway porter Edmund Thompson) teaches the children the ways of the street and their black cultural heritage.
Two themes in the novel run through No Crystal Stair: passing as white and surviving as black. Sarsfield recounts a story about the desire to survive, all the while depicting the cosmopolitan Montreal of the 1940s, a city inhabited by jazz musicians, socialites, artists and gangsters.
No Crystal Stair was one of the selected novels in the 2005 edition of Canada Reads , where it was defended by Olympic fencer Sherraine MacKay. [3]
The book received reviews from publications including Herizons , School Library Journal , Quill & Quire , and New York Amsterdam News . [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
The book was the subject of articles in the journals Canadian Review of American Studies and Essays on Canadian Writing. [11] [12]
Clark Blaise, OC is a Canadian-American author. He was a professor of creative writing at York University, and a writer of short fiction. In 2010, he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada.
The Journey Prize is a Canadian literary award, presented annually by McClelland and Stewart and the Writers' Trust of Canada for the best short story published by an emerging writer in a Canadian literary magazine. The award was endowed by James A. Michener, who donated the Canadian royalty earnings from his 1988 novel Journey.
Mairuth Hodge Sarsfield, CQ was a Canadian activist, diplomat, journalist, researcher and television personality, as well as an accomplished broadcaster, civil servant, and best-selling author.
Southern Ontario Gothic is a subgenre of the Gothic novel genre and a feature of Canadian literature that comes from Southern Ontario. This region includes Toronto, Southern Ontario's major industrial cities, and the surrounding countryside. While the genre may also feature other areas of Ontario, Canada, and the world as narrative locales, this region provides the core settings.
Marie-Louise Gay is a Canadian children's writer and illustrator. She has received numerous awards for her written and illustrated works in both French and English, including the 2005 Vicky Metcalf Award, multiple Governor General's Awards, and multiple Janet Savage Blachford Prizes, among others.
Neil Smith is a Canadian writer and translator from Montreal, Quebec. His novel Boo, published in 2015, won the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction. Boo was also nominated for a Sunburst Award and the Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book Award, and was longlisted for the Prix des libraires du Québec.
Kaie Kellough is a Canadian poet and novelist. He was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, raised in Calgary, Alberta, and in 1998 moved to Montreal, Quebec, where he lives.
Taras Grescoe is a Canadian non-fiction writer. His debut book, Sacré Blues, won the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction, Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction, and McAuslan First Book Prize. His fourth book, Bottomfeeder, won the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
Ivan E. Coyote is a Canadian spoken word performer, writer, and LGBT advocate. Coyote has won many accolades for their collections of short stories, novels, and films. They also visit schools to tell stories and give writing workshops. The CBC has called Coyote a "gender-bending author who loves telling stories and performing in front of a live audience." Coyote is non-binary and uses singular they pronouns. Many of Coyote's stories are about gender, identity, and social justice. Coyote currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Joel Thomas Hynes is a Canadian writer, actor and director known for his irreverent, oftentimes dark and uproarious characters and a raw, unflinching vision of modern underground Canada.
Ian Williams is a Canadian poet and fiction writer.
Esi Edugyan is a Canadian novelist. She has twice won the Giller Prize, for her novels Half-Blood Blues and Washington Black.
The Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ Emerging Writers is a Canadian literary award, presented annually by the Writers' Trust of Canada to an emerging Canadian writer who is part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer community. Originally presented as a general career achievement award for emerging writers that considered their overall body of work, since 2022 it has been presented to honor debut books.
Amber Dawn is a Canadian writer, who won the 2012 Dayne Ogilvie Prize, presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada to an emerging lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender writer.
Guillaume Morissette is a Canadian fiction writer and poet based in Montreal, Quebec. His work has frequently been associated with the Alt Lit movement, with Dazed & Confused magazine describing him as "Canada's Alt Lit poster boy." He has published stories, poems and essays online and in print, in venues such as Maisonneuve, Little Brother, Broken Pencil, Shabby Doll House and Thought Catalog, and was listed as one of CBC Books' "Writers to Watch" for 2014.
Jessica Dee Humphreys is a Canadian author, indexer, and journalist specializing in international humanitarian, military, and children's issues.
Cherie Dimaline is an Indigenous Canadian writer from the Georgian Bay Métis Nation, a part of Métis Nation of Ontario. She has written a variety of award-winning novels and other acclaimed stories and articles. She is most noted for her 2017 young adult novel The Marrow Thieves, which explores the continued colonial exploitation of Indigenous people.
The Marrow Thieves is a young adult novel by Métis Canadian writer Cherie Dimaline, published on September 1, 2017 by Cormorant Books through its Dancing Cat Books imprint.
Split Tooth is a 2018 novel by Canadian musician Tanya Tagaq. Based in part on her own personal journals, the book tells the story of a young Inuk woman growing up in the Canadian Arctic in the 1970s.
Linda Little is an author from Nova Scotia, Canada. Her third work of fiction has been praised as a "darkly beautiful novel".