Speechless.
Review on Quill & Quire by Shazia Hafiz Ramji.
A novel about a white woman claiming to speak for a Black woman comes burdened with the pre-existing trope of the “white saviour complex,” a belief system rooted in colonization’s “civilizing” efforts of trade, religion, and language. The white saviour complex can manifest in the guise of a Westerner making it their mission to help a poverty-stricken, suffering person in a post-colonial country. Speechless, the third novel by award-winning Nova Scotia poet Anne Simpson, investigates this hefty quandary with a generous, persuasive imagination. <read more>
Falling. McClelland & Stewart, 2008.
ISBN 978-0771080906, 978-0-7710-8089-0 (paperback).
Winner of the Dartmouth Fiction Award, 2009.
Longlisted for the International Dublin IMPAC Literary Award, 2009.
Globe and Mail’s Top 100 Books
Profound and sharply observed. . . . Simpson has the poet’s art of paying close attention to details, which take on added fierceness and luminosity. . . . We see, with increasing
admiration and wonder, the forces [her characters] are able draw on, as they tumble through the waterfall, in order to survive… Like any good requiem, [this novel’s] song
swings toward the universal. — The Globe and Mail
The novel moves forward much like the rushing river that ends up as the tumbling waterfall, unstoppable, a force of nature, like life itself. . . . The novel deserves the
highest praise: Simpson has brought together character, plot, language and metaphor with both subtlety and intensity. The result is a potent mix, one that might well result in a Giller Award to stand beside her Griffin Prize. — The National Post
One of this year’s lead novels from McClelland & Stewart. — The Ottawa Citizen
Canterbury Beach. Penguin Canada, 2001. ISBN 0-670-89484-2.
Finalist for the Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, 2002.
Finalist for the Chapters / Robertson Davies First Novel Prize (unpublished
manuscript), 1999
The Globe and Mail Top 100 Book
A touching and perceptive first novel that journeys through the delicate intricacies of family life, its shifting alliances, its unique ability to wound, its capacity for forgiveness. The characters speak to the parent and child in us all. — Merilyn Simonds.
An extraordinary, darkly shimmering novel. Canterbury Beach spurs the sort of purifying sorrow that is bound up with gratitude for the power of art. — The Globe and Mail.
Quick. McClelland & Stewart, 2007.
ISBN 978-0-7710-8091-3
Winner of the Pat Lowther Poetry Award, 2008.
The Globe and Mail Top 100 Book
In her irony and experiment, she calls to mind Anne Carson. But the lushness of her words evokes Anne Michaels. — The Globe and Mail
Loop. McClelland & Stewart, 2003. ISBN 0-7710-8075-1.
Winner of the Griffin Poetry Prize, 2004
Finalist for the Governor-General’s Award, 2003
The Globe and Mail Top 100 Book
With its strong lyric voice and simple yet dynamic forms, Loop is a collection that draws
you, and draws you in. — Quill & Quire
Simpson’s lines ring lean and mature, and, like the late Bronwen Wallace, are full of people you know and people you don’t, but want to. — Elm Street Magazine
Canterbury Beach. Penguin Canada, 2001. ISBN 0-670-89484-2.
Finalist for the Thomas Head Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award, 2002.
Finalist for the Chapters / Robertson Davies First Novel Prize (unpublished
manuscript), 1999
The Globe and Mail Top 100 Book
A touching and perceptive first novel that journeys through the delicate intricacies of family life, its shifting alliances, its unique ability to wound, its capacity for forgiveness. The characters speak to the parent and child in us all. — Merilyn Simonds.
An extraordinary, darkly shimmering novel. Canterbury Beach spurs the sort of purifying sorrow that is bound up with gratitude for the power of art. — The Globe and Mail.
Light Falls Through You. McClelland & Stewart, 2000. ISBN 0-7710-8077-8.
Winner of the Atlantic Poetry Prize, 2001.
Winner of the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award, 2001.
Finalist for the Pat Lowther Award, 2001.
Light Falls Through You is strongly original, in its supple music and lucid imagery, its range of reference (to archaeology, painting, the mythological and natural worlds) and in the scope of its moral concerns. Anne Simpson has written an outstanding work. — League of Canadian Poets’ press release on the winners of the Gerald Lampert Award
Simpson’s lines ring lean and mature and are full of people you know and people you don’t, but want to. — Elm Street Magazine
Each poem is meticulously constricted and is eerily and beautifully lit from within […] Simpson’s poems deserve to be lingered on, like a beach on those ever shortening summer nights. — ArtBeat
The Marram Grass: Poetry and Otherness. Gaspereau Press, 2009.
ISBN 978-1-55447-072-3 (bound)
ISBN 978-1-55447-071-6 (paperback)
This is what poetry and readers want—what neither can get enough of: ‘the sense of being connected not only with earth, water, sky, but also being profoundly at home in the world. — The Daily Gleaner
The work of an artist who has thought long and deeply about the meaning of her practice. — Prairie Fire
An Orange from Portugal: Christmas Stories from the Maritimes and Newfoundland.
Edited by Anne Simpson. Goose Lane Editions, 2003. ISBN 0-86492-345-7.