Kalila

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Read Excerpt

By (author): Rosemary Nixon

Shortlisted, George Bugnet Award for Fiction

Kalila chronicles the lives of Maggie and Brodie, whose joy collides with devastation when their daughter’s birth also heralds the news of her congenital heart condition. In this startlingly inventive novel, Rosemary Nixon braids light and darkness into a narrative chain pulled exquisitely taut.

Through Maggie and Brodie’s shifting viewpoints, the isolating impenetrability of hospital life, the mediation of physics, music, and family, Nixon propels the reader into unmapped emotional terrain where a shell-shocked family grapples with the horror, joy, and mystery of impermanence. The result is a spellbinding tale, provocative for the emotions and the intellect.

AUTHOR

Rosemary Nixon

Rosemary Nixon’s novel Kalila was longlisted for the 2012 ReLit Award and shortlisted for the Georges Bugnet Award. She is also the author of two previous short story collections, Mostly Country and The Cock’s Egg. Nixon has judged numerous literary competitions and has taught creative writing at the University of Calgary, Sage Hill Writing Experience, and Anema-by-the-Sea in Greece. She has served as Writer-in-Residence for the University of Calgary Distinguished Writers Programme and the University of Windsor.

Reviews

“In Kalila, Rosemary Nixon has given readers characters to remember as a young couple struggles to cope with a premature infant whose life is in danger. In a tightly compressed novel with short snappy sentences and moments and phrases of poetic precision we have a heart-wrenching story with just enough humour to lighten the darkness. Using sources as diverse as The Little Prince, the Bible, hymns, traditional songs and the laws of physics, Nixon explores what it is to believe. Believe this: Kalila is a fine gem of a novel.”
– The Winnipeg Review