In 1824, on the island of Trinidad, Marie Ursule, queen of a secret society of militant slaves, plots a mass suicide—a quiet, passionate act of revolt. But she cannot bring herself to kill her small daughter, Bola, whom she smuggles away in the early dawn light. As Bola's children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren spill out across the world to America, Canada and Europe, they find their lives both haunted and vindicated by the dreams and passions of their defiant ancestor. The interconnected stories of six generations of Marie Ursule's descendants form a lush, beguiling and beautifully told history of dispossession, and bring this Governor General's Award-winning writer into the front rank of the world's novelists.
WINNER
| 2006 Harbourfront Festival Prize
"One of the essential works of our times. . . . Rich, elegiac . . . nothing short of brilliant." —The Globe and Mail
"Sensuous . . . wildly lyrical . . . wonderful. . . . Extremely impressive in the range of its characters and situations. . . . It is an unforgettable world [that] pierces the imagination." —The Toronto Star
"Rich and vibrant. . . . Dionne Brand continues to wrestle with her restless poetics in an effort to forge a language bold enough for the big ideas she likes to cram into her fiction . . . Sensuous, sometimes hallucinatory prose. . . . Brand's is a voice both brave and beautiful." —NOW
"Extraordinary. . . . Dionne Brand . . . exults in the power of language and deploys it to lure us from harsh reality to metaphysical heights. . . . The prose, so close to poetry, [is] almost musical." —National Post
"Tough, unflinching . . . hauntingly beautiful. The novel creates a rich world." —Philip Marchand, the Toronto Star
"Brand draws us into a fierce, incendiary plantation world, a lush, dense revolutionary zone . . . through the sheer force of her imagination wills an obscured history back to life." —The Montreal Gazette
"A brilliant work. Like all her writing, Brand’s work here is dense, beautiful and sure, but what makes this work even bigger again is her evocation of an intricately connected past and present." —Georgia Straight
"At the Full and Change of the Moon is simply a beautiful, frightening and engaging book. . . . [A] powerful novel." —Books in Canada
DIONNE BRAND is the award-winning author of twenty-three books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Her twelve books of poetry include Land to Light On; thirsty; Inventory; Ossuaries; The Blue Clerk: Ars Poetica in 59 Versos; and Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems. Her six works of fiction include At the Full and Change of the Moon; What We All Long For; Love Enough; and Theory. Her nonfiction work includes Bread Out of Stone and A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging. Brand is the recipient of numerous literary prizes, among them the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Toronto Book Award, the Trillium Book Prize, the OCM Bocas Prize, and the 2021 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction. She is the Editorial Director of Alchemy, an imprint of Knopf Canada, and University Professor Emerita at the University of Guelph. She lives in Toronto, Canada.
View titles by Dionne Brand
In 1824, on the island of Trinidad, Marie Ursule, queen of a secret society of militant slaves, plots a mass suicide—a quiet, passionate act of revolt. But she cannot bring herself to kill her small daughter, Bola, whom she smuggles away in the early dawn light. As Bola's children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren spill out across the world to America, Canada and Europe, they find their lives both haunted and vindicated by the dreams and passions of their defiant ancestor. The interconnected stories of six generations of Marie Ursule's descendants form a lush, beguiling and beautifully told history of dispossession, and bring this Governor General's Award-winning writer into the front rank of the world's novelists.
Awards
WINNER
| 2006 Harbourfront Festival Prize
Praise
"One of the essential works of our times. . . . Rich, elegiac . . . nothing short of brilliant." —The Globe and Mail
"Sensuous . . . wildly lyrical . . . wonderful. . . . Extremely impressive in the range of its characters and situations. . . . It is an unforgettable world [that] pierces the imagination." —The Toronto Star
"Rich and vibrant. . . . Dionne Brand continues to wrestle with her restless poetics in an effort to forge a language bold enough for the big ideas she likes to cram into her fiction . . . Sensuous, sometimes hallucinatory prose. . . . Brand's is a voice both brave and beautiful." —NOW
"Extraordinary. . . . Dionne Brand . . . exults in the power of language and deploys it to lure us from harsh reality to metaphysical heights. . . . The prose, so close to poetry, [is] almost musical." —National Post
"Tough, unflinching . . . hauntingly beautiful. The novel creates a rich world." —Philip Marchand, the Toronto Star
"Brand draws us into a fierce, incendiary plantation world, a lush, dense revolutionary zone . . . through the sheer force of her imagination wills an obscured history back to life." —The Montreal Gazette
"A brilliant work. Like all her writing, Brand’s work here is dense, beautiful and sure, but what makes this work even bigger again is her evocation of an intricately connected past and present." —Georgia Straight
"At the Full and Change of the Moon is simply a beautiful, frightening and engaging book. . . . [A] powerful novel." —Books in Canada
DIONNE BRAND is the award-winning author of twenty-three books of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. Her twelve books of poetry include Land to Light On; thirsty; Inventory; Ossuaries; The Blue Clerk: Ars Poetica in 59 Versos; and Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems. Her six works of fiction include At the Full and Change of the Moon; What We All Long For; Love Enough; and Theory. Her nonfiction work includes Bread Out of Stone and A Map to the Door of No Return: Notes to Belonging. Brand is the recipient of numerous literary prizes, among them the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Toronto Book Award, the Trillium Book Prize, the OCM Bocas Prize, and the 2021 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction. She is the Editorial Director of Alchemy, an imprint of Knopf Canada, and University Professor Emerita at the University of Guelph. She lives in Toronto, Canada.
View titles by Dionne Brand
