To support writers and their publishers, The Malahat Review posts the book reviews appearing in its print edition as each issue is published. They are arranged below by genre and within each genre, by author, listed in alphabetical order of last name. Some of the reviews posted below are expanded versions of the reviews that appeared in the print edition. Years listed are publication dates, not review dates.
*Review space may be limited in our quarterly magazine, but click here to read a list of new books received in our office. Please note that inclusion on the list does not necessarily preclude a print review.*
NISHGA reimagines memoir and history in a truly generative way. The epigraphs at the start of the book from John A. Macdonald and Duncan Campbell Scott—architects of the Residential school system and the Indian Act—are juxtaposed with a 2018 Facebook post from Métis poet Gregory Scofield that details the importance of making space in the circle for those who have grown up disconnected. It is in these interstitial spaces (or perhaps what Abel defines as empty spaces) between history and its violent machinations and Abel’s quest for reconnection and home that contributes to the book’s complex approach to understanding contemporary Indigenous experiences.
Avant Desire: A Nicole Brossard Reader, edited by Sina Queyras, Geneviève Robichaud, and Erin Wunker
Bawaajigan: Stories of Power, edited by Nathan Niigan Noodin Adler & Christine Miskonoo-dinkwe Smith
Sandra McIntyre (ed.), Everything Is So Political: A Collection of Short Fiction by Canadian Writers