Finding Again the World

Finding Again the World brings together a dozen of the best stories by John Metcalf, a modern master of the form. Spanning more than fifty years and ranging from some of his earliest published stories, such as “Dandelions” and “The Eastmill Reception Centre,” to his latest, with “Ceazer Salad” and “The Museum at the End of the World,” this current gathering shows a writer whose voice, at every stage of his career, is unmistakeable. These are elegant and brilliantly charged fictions, entertaining and moving and mischievous: taking the dross and straw of everyday life and transforming it, through some sort of alchemical process of sensibility, into art.

With an introduction by Keath Fraser, Finding Again the World is a landmark collection, a sumptuous gathering of singular work: these are stories that will last.

AUTHOR

John Metcalf

John Metcalf has been one of the leading editors in Canada for more than five decades, editing more than two hundred books over this time, including eighteen volumes of the Best Canadian Stories anthology. He is also the author of more than a dozen works of fiction and nonfiction, including Finding Again the World: Selected Stories, Vital Signs: Collected Novellas, An Aesthetic Underground: A Literary Memoir, and The Museum at the End of the World. Senior Fiction Editor at Biblioasis, he lives in Ottawa with his wife, Myrna.

Caroline Adderson is a Vancouver-based author of five novels and two collections of short stories. Her work has received numerous award nominations including two Commonwealth Writers’ Prizes, the Governor General’s Literary Award, and the Rogers’ Trust Fiction Prize. Her awards include three BC Book Prizes, three CBC Literary Awards, and a National Magazine Award Gold Medal for Fiction.

Kristyn Dunnion has authored six books, most recently Stoop City (Biblioasis, 2020). Her short fiction appears in Best Canadian Stories 2020, Toronto 2033, Orca, and the Tahoma Literary Review. Dunnion was raised in Essex County, the southern-most tip of Canada, and currently lives in Toronto.

Cynthia Flood’s stories have won numerous awards, including The Journey Prize and a National Magazine Award. Her novel Making A Stone Of The Heart was nominated for the City of Vancouver Book Prize, and her acclaimed short story collections include Red Girl Rat Boy (2013) which was shortlisted for the BC Book Prizes’ fiction award. She lives in Vancouver’s West End.

Shaena Lambert’s fiction has been nominated for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the Frank O’Connor Award for the Short Story, and have appeared in publications including Best Canadian Stories and The Journey Prize Anthology. Lambert lives in Vancouver.

Elise Levine is the author of Say This: Two Novellas, This Wicked Tongue, the novels Blue Field and Requests and Dedications, and the story collection Driving Men Mad. Originally from Toronto, she lives in Baltimore, MD, where she teaches in the MA in Writing program at Johns Hopkins University.

Kathy Page is the author of eight novels, including Dear Evelyn, winner of the 2018 Rogers Writers’ Trust Award for Fiction and the Butler Book Prize. Her short fiction collections, Paradise & Elsewhere (2014) and The Two of Us (2016), were both nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Born in the UK, she moved with her family to Salt Spring Island in 2001.

Reviews

Praise for Finding Again the World

“Masterful…Harsh reality, hope, and caricature mingle in this tour de force. As Metcalf says in his previous book, “Writing is very hard work but at the same time it is delightful play.” An exceptional collection.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

“A delight to read…[Metcalf] submerges the reader completely into the universe of his writing…Every character is deeply authentic and each setting is described with striking imagery. Metcalf’s writing is impossible to forget and his stories will feel as if they’ve become a part of you—or rather, as if you have become a part of them…Metcalf is a crucial figure to Canadian writing and the Canadian community as a whole.” —The Charlatan

Praise for John Metcalf

“John Metcalf has written some of the very best stories ever published in this country.” —Alice Munro

“[Metcalf’s] talent is generous, hectoring, huge, and remarkable.” —The Washington Post

“In the past few decades, Canada has won a reputation as a prolific producer of high-quality short stories. Alice Munro, Mavis Gallant and John Metcalf are among those who have proven themselves masters of the difficult form.” —Maclean’s

“Hilarious, touching and delightful … brilliant concision and understated humor.” —Los Angeles Times

“A master stylist confidently at work in his favoured form.” —The Oxford Companion to Canadian Literature: Second Edition