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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. ________________________________________________________________________________________ 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 ________________________________________________________________________________________ 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. _________________________________________________________________________________________ Of
a Fire Beyond the Hills by Ernest Hekkanen A Finalist for the George
Ryga Award, 2008 ISBN 978-1-894842-13-6 $25.00 Based on news stories that aired on CNN, ABC, FOX and
the CBC, as well as articles that appeared in The Los Angles Times, The New York Times, The Vancouver
Sun and The Globe and Mail, Hekkanen’s novel, Of a Fire Beyond the Hills, is written in the tradition of Norman Mailer’s The Armies of the Night and Henrik Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People. During a time of war, an intrepid group of anti-war
activists in Nelson, British Columbia decides to erect a War Resisters
Monument to U.S. draft dodgers and deserters. It results in an angry outburst
by right-wingers across North America, in particular by the Veterans of
Foreign Wars, who encourage President Bush to condemn the project. The local
Chamber of Commerce is flooded by hysterical hate mail urging Nelson’s city
fathers to ban the War Resisters Monument. When Ernest Hekkanen offers his front yard as a
possible site for the statue, the mayor and city councilors seek to put a
stop to it out of fear that it will ruin Nelson’s tourist industry. “This
novel is about fear and patriotism,” Hekkanen says. “And hysteria.” “Of a
Fire Beyond the Hills resonates not as an
advertisement for [Hekkanen’s] bravery so much as a defense of it… [H]aving born the brunt of hostility from
the Chamber of Commerce types, he has struck back with his considerable
writing talents, providing a frequently brilliant and often funny local
history of the wave of fear, patriotism and hysteria that effectively blew
the lid off Nelson’s image as a ‘laid-back’ and idyllic community.” -
Alan Twigg, “Hekkanen’s
Progress,” www.abcbookworld.com “Of a
Fire Beyond the Hills chronicles the verbal
confrontation of pro– and anti-war groups that culminates on [Hekkanen’s]
front lawn… In true American fashion—in the fashion of our forefathers who
dared to stand up for our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness—Hekkanen caustically calls to accounting pro-war individuals of
both Canadian and American extraction… In these difficult times when civil
rights have been eroded under pressure from a government that has sought to
extend its power to include torture and to fabricate bases to justify an
unfounded war, voices such as Hekkanen’s remind us of what is truly at
stake.” - Beth L. Virtanen, PhD, University of Alberta, www.finnala.com “In Of
a Fire Beyond the Hills, the latest book by
Nelson author, Ernest Hekkanen, he uses the city as his philosophical soapbox
to show how the West Kootenay city is representative of a larger problem
moving beneath the surface of democracy—totalitarianism.” -
Timothy Schafer, Nelson Daily News “Anyone who has lived in Nelson for a while will
quickly recognize people and places depicted in [Of a Fire Beyond the Hills]. While the story was inspired by real events,
Hekkanen insists that it is a work of fiction….His writing clearly evokes a
particular time and place. While Nelson provides the setting for the novel,
Hekkanen’s message is universal.” - Anna Kirkpatrick, The Express “Ernest Hekkanen’s latest book, Of a Fire Beyond the Hills, revolves around a displaced monument that
commemorates U.S. draft dodgers and deserters… Hekkanen becomes the recipient
of anonymous, creepy phone calls, broken living room windows, hate mail…
Hekkanen captures the daily minutiae of life in a small town, a delightful
everyday life that could tip off balance at any time… For the folks out there
who are indifferent to what’s going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, this book
seems to whisper, ‘Stop eating your grilled Gruyère cheese with Roma tomatoes
and red onion on open-face sourdough long enough to read me, if you please.…”
- Jill Mandrake, Geist #71 _________________________________________________________________________________________ |