My Paris Author: Gail Scott Canadian Literature Series September 2003 136 pages, 5.5 x 8.5 Paperback, 1-56478-297-2 Retail Paperback Price:$12.95 Our Paperback Price: $10.36

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Book Description

In My Paris, a Canadian woman keeps an extraordinary journal of her time in a Parisian studio. Not a typical tourist, she prefers indoor spaces, seeing Paris go by on TV or watching from her window the ever-changing displays of men's designer clothing across the boulevard. Or she roams the streets, caught between nostalgia and a competing sense of the present day, between Paris's rich cultural traditions and the realities of Western imperialism.

Disillusioned by her inability to reconcile these contradictions and by her own part in perpetuating them, she assembles in her journal pieces of the present, past, of art, philosophy, of herself, and of the world outside her, pulling them together on the page in a very personal act of subversion and creation.

About the Author

Gail Scott's other books of fiction include the novels Heroine and Main Brides and the story collection Spare Parts Plus Two. Her translation of Michael Delisle's The Sailor's Disquiet was shortlisted for the prestigious Governor General's award in 2001. The Canadian publication of My Paris was named one of the ten best novels of 1999 by Canada's trade magazine Quill & Quire. Also an editor of the Narrativity website sponsored by San Francisco State University, she currently lives in Montreal.

Praise

"In Heroine . . . the city of Montreal comes into a focus as precise and vivid as Mrs. Dalloway's London." —Village Voice

"One of the hottest novels to come out of any country lately . . . Heroine opens out to a magnificent view of a woman's perception of life . . . taking art and artistry to startling new conclusions and borders."—Toronto Star

"Gail Scott is one of the most gutsy writers around."—Toronto Globe and Mail

"In its attention to the cultural signs of our era . . . its remarkable social acuity . . . the poetic rhythm of its prose . . . Main Brides is a brilliant, sophisticated work of fiction."—Books in Canada