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New Titles To get to the main New Orphic Index below, hit the website address:
www3.telus.net/neworphicpublishers-hekkanen New Orphic
Publishers 706 Mill Street,
Nelson, B.C. V1L 4S5 Canada To buy any of the following books, add $7.00 for postage and handling and
send your cheque to the above address. ________________________________________________________________________________________ 2011 All Night Gas Bar,
and Ten Story Autopsies Ernest Hekkanen ISBN 978-1-894842-20-4
154 pages $22.00 In the early 1970s, not long
after arriving in Vancouver as an immigrant, Hekkanen assembled a collection
of short stories entitled All
Night Gas Bar. In 2010, Hekkanen stumbled upon
the manuscript while throwing out some possessions. The stories seemed a
little antiquated, given how much credit-card procedures had changed and how
security was now being practiced at all-night service stations, but otherwise
they struck him as fresh, evocative of the times and, most importantly, as
pretty good tales. To provide the stories with
some context, Hekkanen decided to write ten story autopsies that would
examine what gave rise to each story. The resulting book seamlessly combines
short story and memoir writing. _____________________________________________________________________ 2011 Wintering Over:
Poems Strewn on Snow Ernest Hekkanen ISBN 978-1-894842-14-3 106 pages $18.00 Wintering Over: Poems Strewn on Snow might be compared to a long hibernation during which the poet is
disturbed by dreams, visions and hallucinations. Confronted by the necessity to
survive the absence of light and the terrible cold that grips the West
Kootenays, Hekkanen goes deep beneath the white splendor of wintertime—to
where the darkness resides underneath. _____________________________________________________________________ 2010 Elämän Taipaleet ja Muita
Tarinoita Ernest Hekkanen Translator: Rayana Erland ISBN 978-1-894842-19-8 83 pages $15.00 Five, selected Hekkanen short stories translated into the Finnish by
Rayana Erland ________________________________________________________________________________ 2010 The
Collected Short Stories of Ernest Hekkanen: Naturalistic,
Modern Gothic, Surreal & Postmodern, Volume
Two ISBN 978-1-894842-18-1 457 pages $28.00 The Collected Short Stories of Ernest
Hekkanen displays the extraordinary talent,
versatility and scope of one of the most accomplished storytellers of our
time. This two volume compilation contains the definitive version of stories
he has written over the past forty years. With the publication of Volume One and Volume Two, Hekkanen has put the literary world on notice that he is one of the
premier masters of the form. Volume Two begins in the middle of Hekkanen’s modern Gothic phase and extends
through his surreal and postmodern phases. It includes stories never before
collected in book form. “Guaranteed to be the most impressive, least-talked-about fiction
accomplishment of 2010, the 880 pages and 73 stories of Volume One and Volume Two of The Collected Short
Stories of Ernest Hekkanen… represent an
astonishing range and depth over forty years of highly original
storytelling.” Alan Twigg, B.C. BookWorld ______________________________________________________________________ 2010 The
Collected Short Stories of Ernest Hekkanen: Naturalistic,
Modern Gothic, Surreal & Postmodern, Volume
One ISBN 978-1-894842-17-4 427 pages $28.00 The Collected Short Stories of Ernest
Hekkanen displays the extraordinary talent,
versatility and scope of one of the most accomplished storytellers of our
time. This two volume compilation contains the definitive version of stories
he has written over the past forty years. With the publication of Volume One and Volume Two, Hekkanen has put the literary world on notice that he is one of the
premier masters of the form. Volume One begins with Hekkanen’s naturalistic short stories and ends in the middle
of Hekkanen’s modern Gothic phase. It includes stories never before collected
in book form. “Hekkanen’s strong authorial voice can depict a kind and gentle man who
runs a junkyard, a man who embodies human dignity within the confines of a
world that is commonly thought to be at the bottom of society. Dignity here
is not about the means by which one earns a living. Instead, dignity is a
choice of behavior, a recognition of the value implicit in others, and a
respect for the limits of others which circumscribe the actual but do not
prevent characters from reaching higher order goals of compassion, loyalty,
kindness.” Dr. Beth L. Virtanen, The Finnish American Reporter. ______________________________________________________________________ 2009 Letter
from Lubumbashi by K.Linda Kivi ISBN 978-1-894842-15-0 $16.00 “Several friends have read this
book, and they have used the same words to describe it. The word ‘gem’ keeps
coming up. ‘A small brilliant gem,’ said one, which describes this book
perfectly… Kivi has pulled an astonishing trick, thinking herself into the
mind and heart of such a multiply fragmented and complex character. And done
it absolutely believably… Kivi is a writer of some considerable
accomplishment.” Luanne Armstrong, ARTiculate, Fall, 2009 “Letter from
Lubumbashi is the story of Joseph, a Congolese
refugee, whose disturbing past unexpectedly comes to weigh upon him. Joseph’s
internal struggle to make peace with the ghosts of war comes to contrast with
his bucolic family life in Canada. It is a moving portrait of the haunting,
lasting effects of war. “Letter from
Lubumbashi.. is the tale of an African refugee,
wrested from his village and his ambitious plans for the future thanks to the
aftermath of European colonialist policies… The universal themes apply to any
man raised to keep silent about war, stress, loss, most of all about fear and
bravery… Th[is] novella packs an emotional wallop. It is written simply, with
no excess, no bathos.” Tönu Naelapea, Estonian Life “K.Linda Kivi began drafting Letter from Lubumbashi in 1997, during a trip to Africa. I can see how a carefully built work
such as this could take ten or twelve years to complete… I agree that Letter from Lubumbashi, like several other contemporary works of its stature, ‘deserves much
more attention than it has so far gotten.’” Jill
Mandrake, www.geist.com/blogs/jill “Kivi embraces and develops the traditional novel form to fit the pieces
into a cohesive whole. The result is convincing and compelling fiction.” Elizabeth Westbrook, Paragraph This book can also be ordered directly from K.Linda
Kivi at
info@maapress.ca ________________________________________________________________________________________ 2009 Star
Seeds by Sean Arthur Joyce ISBN 978-1-894842-16-7 $16.00 “A unique formalist in the best sense of that word, Sean Arthur Joyce
combines his sense of what really matters to humanity on the largest possible
scale—the macrocosm—with a startling precision, while drawing attention to
the natural world, his spirit’s favorite locations, not just to landscapes,
but also to some of our smaller fellow creatures, such as moths, crows, and
cats—the microcosm. “Joyce already possesses many of the poetic gifts that take a lifetime to
master. His voice shows an innocence, a child-like openness to new wonders, a
deep respect for the natural world. Joyce is certainly at home in the
universe and he wants to remind us that we are, too.” Steven Michael Berzensky, author of The Names Leave the Stones, Variations on
the Birth of Jacob and The Blue Pools of Paradise. ______________________________________________________________________________ The
Reluctant Author: The
Life and Literature of Ernest Hekkanen by Margrith Schraner ISBN 978-1-894842-10-5 $25.00 “[The Reluctant Author] is both a work of investigation and of love wherein the author shares with us and exposes to us the hard shell and the soft underbelly of the
writer, poet, artist Ernest Hekkanen… Schraner examines
Hekkanen’s temperament, his drive, and his use of multiple media in the
expression of his artistic vision. With sensitivity and discernment, Schraner captures his conflicts and his
accomplishments, and presents them without sentimentality.” – Beth L.
Virtanen, PhD, University of Alberta, Journal of Finnish Studies “Ernest Hekkanen is Canadian
literature’s true iconoclast and most resolute maverick. He deserves to be
the subject of a book.” – Bill Gaston, author of Sointula, Mount
Appetite, and Tall Lives, Professor of Creative Writing, University of
Victoria “The Reluctant
Author abounds with poignant quotes from
Ernest Hekkanen… It is quite engaging and well done… Hekkanen’s own writings
remind me of Aki Kaurismäki’s films: They both dispense black humor and their
characters are determined not to comply with the demands of ‘utterly
middle-class existence.’” – Börje Vähämäki, PhD, Professor of Finnish
Studies, University of Toronto, editor of The
Journal of Finnish Studies “I’ve published a few of Ernest Hekkanen’s short stories [in the New World Finn]. I’ve always wanted to know more about the man who concocts these
tales, and why he writes them. Margrith Schraner answered nearly all my
questions in this brief book about the man she knows so well.” - Gerry
Henkel, editor, New
World Finn ______________________________________________________________________________ Re-released in 2009 Kafka:
The Master of Yesno A Critical Study of
the Writer and His Work by Ernest Hekkanen ISBN 978-1-894842-09-9 $25.00 In this critical study of Franz Kafka and his work, Hekkanen debunks many
of the myths which have flourishes since the time of the great Prague
writer’s death in 1924. Hekkanen’s portrait of Kafka
isn’t as charitable as those provided by Ernst Pawel, Ronald Hayman, Max
Broad, and a number of other enthusiasts; and the criticism he levels at
Kafka’s oeuvre runs contrary to the praise heaped on it by scholars who have
turned Kafka into an industry at universities around the world. |