Laisha Rosnau at Vancouver Writers Fest

Prose Under Pressure

Donne may have warned us that no man is an island, but books about isolation and the strange inner lives of those who seek it, or endure it, are some of the richest in the canon. These immersive new works from CanLit royalty offer further confirmation. Giller Prize finalist Steven Price’s Lampedusa follows a Sicilian prince struggling to complete his novel—and legacy. Laisha Rosnau’s protagonists flee fascism in Italy and choose exile and isolation in Vernon, BC, in Little Fortress. Although Michael Crummey’s orphaned siblings in The Innocents don’t choose their isolation, their story unfolds in a remote cove on Newfoundland’s northern coastline where they must rely on each other to survive. Discover what remarkable things happen in writing when you constrain your characters.