Arts
A poet and a fiction writer meet at Émile Nelligan's grave--figuratively, of course. Or is it literally? Kelly, whose recent poetry collection draws on Irish and French landscape and psychogeography, and Yiwei, whose latest novel was banned in his country of origin, talk about the writers that haunt them, and the writers they haunt. Also discussed: travel and the influence of place; spiritual fathers; Heaneyboppers; Europe's smallest church. Xue Yiwei is the author of 20 books, including five novels, six collections of short stories and five collections of essays. Shenzheners, his first book, and Dr. Bethune's Children, his first novel (both translated from Chinese into English), are published by Linda Leith Publishing. Kelly Norah Drukker is the author of Small Fires (McGill-Queen's University Press, 2016), a first collection of poems that won the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry, the Concordia University First Book Prize, and was a finalist for the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal. GLOSSARY Norman Bethune https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Bethune LITERARY MENTIONS Émile Nelligan Etty Hillesum James Joyce W. B. Yeats Seamus Heaney Paul Auster “The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce's Ulysses” by Kevin Birmingham "Borrowed Time: An AIDS Memoir" by Paul Monette Inside the Frozen Mammoth is created by the Association of English-language Publishers of Quebec and features writers published by our members. Interviews by Merriane Couture, technical production and editing by Jess Glavina. Anna Leventhal is the executive producer. Original music is by Pamela Hart, cover art by Adam Waito. Thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts for supporting this project. Other sounds heard in this episode: Crows overheard at Mont Royal cemetery (Mark Vernon, via Montreal Sound Map); birds bookending "Temple Benan" in a backyard in Galway, Ireland; atmosphere after "Emile Nelligan" from the Plateau (Max Stein, via Montreal Sound Map).