Susan Swan, What Casanova Told Me (Knopf Canada)

York humanities professor Susan Swan has written a novel that embraces two centuries, two women, a long-lost journal and the mystery behind the legendary Casanova's last great love. Recently named one of the Globe & Mail's top 100 books for 2004, it is a story of a Mediterranean odyssey and a search for renewal, pleasure and inspiration from the past. The novel is based on the journals of Asked For Adams, the fictitious cousin of former American president John Adams, who travelled with Casanova during the last years of his life.

Christopher Dewdney, Acquainted with the Night: An Hour by Hour Celebration of the Art, Science, and Culture of Nighttime (HarperCollins Canada)

Weaving together science and storytelling, art and anthropology, Glendon “writer at large” Christopher Dewdney takes readers on a journey through the nocturnal realm. Twelve chapters correspond to the twelve hours of night, from dusk to dawn, and serve as points of departure for some of night's central themes: sunsets, nocturnal animals, bedtime stories, festivals of the night, fireworks, astronomy, nightclubs, sleep and dreams, the graveyard shift, the art of darkness, and endless nights.

 Arun Mukherjee, Joothan: A Dalit's Life (Columbia   

                                      University Press)
  

York English professor Arun Mukherjee’s translation of Omprakash Valmiki’s memoir Joothan recently made history as the recipient of the inaugural New India Book Prize. Originally written in Hindi, it is one of the first portrayals of Dalit life in north India from the point of view of a Dalit, or ‘untouchable.’ The memoir recounts the birth and upbringing of Valmiki as a Dalit in the newly-independent India of the 1950s.  

Michael Ondaatje, The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film (Vintage Canada)

It was on the set of the movie adaptation of his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, that Glendon faculty member Michael Ondaatje met the master film and sound editor Walter Murch, and the two began a remarkable personal conversation about the making of films and books in our time that continued over two years. From those conversations stemmed this book -- a mine of surprising observations and information about editing, writing and literature, music and sound, the I-Ching, dreams, art and history.

 
Rishma Dunlop and Priscila Uppal, Red Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Canadian Women Poets (Mansfield Press 2004)  

Red Silk: An Anthology of South Asian Canadian Women Poets , co-edited by York professors Rishma Dunlop (Education) and Priscila Uppal (Humanities), brings together powerful South Asian feminist voices from the Canadian literary scene. These poets delve into the complexity, diversity and heterogeneity of South Asian Canadian identity by examining their relationships, as women, to their cultures. The co-editors own works are featured, along with works by Hiro Boga, Kuldip Gill, Sonnet L'Abbé, Danielle Lagah, Soraya Mariam Peerbaye, Sharanpal Ruprai, Sandeep Sanghera, Shauna Singh Baldwin and Proma Tagore.

York University is the leading interdisciplinary teaching and research university in Canada. York offers a modern, academic experience at the undergraduate and graduate level in Toronto, Canada’s most international city.  The third largest university in the country, York is host to a dynamic academic community of 50,000 students and 7,000 faculty and staff, as well as 180,000 alumni worldwide. York’s 10 faculties and 21 research centres conduct ambitious, groundbreaking research that is interdisciplinary, cutting across traditional academic boundaries.  This distinctive and collaborative approach is preparing students for the future and bringing fresh insights and solutions to real-world challenges.

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For more information, or to arrange an interview, contact:

Melissa Hughes, York University Media Relations, 416-736-2100 x 22097 / mehughes@yorku.ca