sewn paper
e-mail the Author
Fiction/Stories
May 2001
192 pages
ISBN 0-88984-220-5
$19.95
A Kind of Fiction
P.K. PageAcclaimed poet P.K. Page weaves together an astonishing range of characters
and themes in this remarkable selection of stories written over the last
fifty years and collected here for the first time.
A Kind of Fiction
bears witness to an accomplished prose stylist and displays the same
lively and witty intelligence that established her reputation as one of
Canada's finest poets.
Page emerges as a writer with an agile and playful imagination, comfortable
with a range of narrative styles that include the comic and surreal plots
of her early pieces from the 1940s, adaptations of Indian and Sufi tales,
and the complex psychological portraits of her recent work. Despite the
variety of styles and themes, all the stories in this collection bear the
imprint of a refined artistic vision and a sense of technique and form
which has been the defining characteristic of her distinguished body of
poetry.
P.K. Page has written some of the best poems published in Canada for
over five decades. In addition to winning the Governor General's award
for poetry in 1957, she was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada
in 1999. She is the author of more than a dozen books, which include ten
volumes of poetry, a novel, selected short stories, three books for children,
and a memoir entitled Brazilian Journal based on her extended
stay in Brazil. A two-volume edition of her collected poems, The Hidden
Room (PQL), was published in 1997.
`These stories - some masterful, some apprentice work, all intriguing - cast
new light on the work and times and multi-faceted sensibility of a great poet.
In the early stories, the young P.K. Page requires propriety and stupidity
and other forms of containment to break their moorings and be seen in surreal
air. In her fairy tales and fables and heart-breaking, heart-lifting stories
of old age and sexual love and vision, she is (simply, spectacularly) transcendant.
She understands beauty, and the barriers, and the way through. There is, by the reckoning
of my heart, no better teacher in this world.'
--Constance Rooke
Photo by Barbara Pedrick
In addition to writing, Page paints, under the name P. K. Irwin. She has mounted one-woman shows in Mexico and Canada. Her work has also been exhibited in various group shows, and is represented in the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Victoria Art Gallery, among others.
P. K. Page was born in England and brought up on the Canadian prairies. She has lived in the Maritimes and in Montreal. After years abroad in Australia, Brazil and Mexico, she now makes her permanent home in Victoria, British Columbia.