Frances Itani - Canadian writer of fiction, poetry and essays
March 1 is CDP Theme Day and the theme is AGING.
This wonderful author is an elegant writer who began her career life as a nurse and THEN became a writer. At age 37 she published her first book for children. Ten years later she published her first book of short stories. At age 56 she published her first novel for adults, and at age 72 she was short-listed for the 2014 Giller Prize, the most prestigious prize for fiction given in Canada (worth $100,000 in November 2014).
Book signing after she delivered her talk
I am privileged to be on the board of the East Gwillimbury Friends of the Library, a group that hosted Frances Itani at an author reading in November 2014. EG is NOT Toronto where an author reading might encourage an audience of 25 or so readers to attend. NO! We are in East Gwillimbury (in the boonies 45 minutes north of Toronto) where our author readings consistently boast an audience of 80 or 100 people...or more. I kid you not! Yep, people here READ!!
My favourite Itani book is
Deafening - a deeply profound novel about what it was like to be the deaf wife of a Canadian soldier in WWI.
The book for which Itani came close to being winner of the Giller Prize,
Tell, is about two small-town Ontario families facing loss at the end of WWI ( a sort-of followup to
Deafening, although the books can certainly be read independently.)
As interested about her audience as we were about her
Remembering the Bones is a bit weird, I confess, but I did read it to the end. And once I got used to the idea that the protagonist was dying, I became curious about what might happen next.
One book I have not yet read,
Requiem, is said by friends of mine to be her best, so it's on my must-read list.
I sense there are a few more books ready to be written by Frances Itani. She's in her 70s but not anywhere near being "old" yet. Frances Itani is aging well.
