The Heart Goes Last is a novel by Margaret Atwood, published in September 2015 by McClelland & Stewart in Canada, Nan A. Talese in the US and Bloomsbury in the UK. [1] The novel is described as a "wickedly funny and deeply disturbing novel about a near future in which the lawful are locked up and the lawless roam free." [2]
The novel is set in the same near-future dystopia as the darkly comic Byliner serial Positron which was released online. [3]
Living in their car, surviving on tips, Charmaine and Stan are in a desperate state. So, when they see an advertisement for Consilience, a ‘social experiment’ offering stable jobs and a home of their own, they sign up immediately. All they have to do in return for suburban paradise is give up their freedom every second month – swapping their home for a prison cell. At first, all is well. But then, unknown to each other, Stan and Charmaine develop passionate obsessions with their ‘Alternates,’ the couple that occupies their house when they are in prison. Soon the pressures of conformity, mistrust, guilt and sexual desire begin to take over. [4]
The novel won the Red Tentacle award. [5] Its French translation, C'est le coeur qui lâche en dernier, was selected for the 2018 edition of Le Combat des livres , where it was defended by Russell Smith. [6]
Margaret Eleanor Atwood is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, teacher, environmental activist, and inventor. Since 1961, she has published eighteen books of poetry, eighteen novels, eleven books of non-fiction, nine collections of short fiction, eight children's books, two graphic novels, and a number of small press editions of both poetry and fiction. Atwood has won numerous awards and honors for her writing, including two Booker Prizes, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, the Governor General's Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, Princess of Asturias Awards, and the National Book Critics and PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Awards. A number of her works have been adapted for film and television.
The Handmaid's Tale is a futuristic dystopian novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood published in 1985. It is set in a near-future New England in a patriarchal, white supremacist, totalitarian theonomic state known as the Republic of Gilead, which has overthrown the United States government. Offred is the central character and narrator and one of the "Handmaids", women who are forcibly assigned to produce children for the "Commanders", who are the ruling class in Gilead.
The 2003 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit: Finalists in 14 categories were announced October 20, the four children's literature winners announced and presented November 10, other winners announced and presented November 12. Each winner received a cheque for $15,000.
Oryx and Crake is a 2003 novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. She has described the novel as speculative fiction and adventure romance, rather than pure science fiction, because it does not deal with things "we can't yet do or begin to do", yet goes beyond the amount of realism she associates with the novel form. It focuses on a lone character called Snowman, who finds himself in a bleak situation with only creatures called Crakers to keep him company. The reader learns of his past, as a boy called Jimmy, and of genetic experimentation and pharmaceutical engineering that occurred under the purview of Jimmy's peer, Glenn "Crake".
Canada Reads is an annual "battle of the books" competition organized and broadcast by Canada's public broadcaster, the CBC. The program has aired in two distinct editions, the English-language Canada Reads on CBC Radio One, and the French-language Le Combat des livres on Ici Radio-Canada Première.
The Governor General's Award for English-language fiction is a Canadian literary award that annually recognizes one Canadian writer for a fiction book written in English. It is one of fourteen Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit, seven each for creators of English- and French-language books. The awards was created by the Canadian Authors Association in partnership with Lord Tweedsmuir in 1936. In 1959, the award became part of the Governor General's Awards program at the Canada Council for the Arts in 1959. The age requirement is 18 and up.
Heather O'Neill is a Canadian novelist, poet, short story writer, screenwriter and journalist, who published her debut novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, in 2006. The novel was subsequently selected for the 2007 edition of Canada Reads, where it was championed by singer-songwriter John K. Samson. Lullabies won the competition. The book also won the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for eight other major awards, including the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Governor General's Award and was longlisted for International Dublin Literary Award.
Deni Ellis Béchard, also known as Deni Yvan Béchard is a Canadian-American novelist.
Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth is a non-fiction book written by Margaret Atwood, about the nature of debt, for the 2008 Massey Lectures. Each of the book's five chapters was delivered as a one-hour lecture in a different Canadian city, beginning in St. John's, Newfoundland, on October 12 and ending in Toronto on November 1. The lectures were broadcast on CBC Radio One's Ideas November 10–14. The book was published by House of Anansi Press, both in paperback and in a limited edition hardcover.
The Year of the Flood is a novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, the second book of her dystopian trilogy, released on September 22, 2009, in Canada and the United States, and on September 7, 2009, in the United Kingdom. The novel was mentioned in numerous newspaper review articles looking forward to notable fiction of 2009.
Katherena Vermette is a Canadian writer, who won the Governor General's Award for English-language poetry in 2013 for her collection North End Love Songs. Vermette is of Métis descent and originates from Winnipeg, Manitoba. She was an MFA student in creative writing at the University of British Columbia.
Ru is a novel by Vietnamese-born Canadian novelist Kim Thúy, first published in French in 2009 by Montreal publisher Libre Expression. It was translated into English in 2012 by Sheila Fischman and published by Vintage Canada.
Claire Holden Rothman is a Canadian novelist, short story writer, and translator.
Jocelyne Saucier is a Canadian novelist and journalist based in Quebec.
Le Combat des livres is an annual "battle of the books" competition organized and broadcast by Ici Radio-Canada Première in Canada. A French edition of the Canada Reads competition, the program was launched in 2004. It aired annually from 2004 to 2014, and was then discontinued until being revived in 2018.
Michèle Taïna Audette is a Canadian politician and activist. She has served as president of Femmes autochtones du Québec from 1998 to 2004 and from 2010 to 2012. She was also the president of Native Women's Association of Canada from 2012 to 2014. From 2004 through 2008, she served as Associate Deputy Minister at the Ministry of Relations with Citizens and Immigration of the Quebec government, where she was in charge of the Secretariat for Women.
Sara Tilley is a Canadian writer from Newfoundland and Labrador, most noted for winning the Winterset Award in 2016 for her novel Duke. The novel was also named to the initial longlist for the 2017 International Dublin Literary Award, but was not a finalist.
Éric Dupont is a Canadian writer from Quebec. His 2006 novel La Logeuse was the winner of the 2008 edition of Le Combat des livres, and his 2012 novel La fiancée américaine was a competing title in the 2013 edition of the program; the latter novel's English translation, Songs for the Cold of Heart, was shortlisted for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Tade Thompson FRSL is a British-born Nigerian psychiatrist best known for his science fiction novels.
Chloé LaDuchesse is a Canadian poet from Sudbury, Ontario, whose collection Exosquelette was a shortlisted finalist for the Governor General's Award for French-language poetry at the 2021 Governor General's Awards, and the 2022 winner of the Trillium Book Award for French Poetry.