Janette Turner Hospital received Australia's Patrick White Award for lifetime literary achievement, and is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of South Carolina. She lives in Columbia, South Carolina.
The culture of many countriesher native Australia, England, India, the U.S. and Canada, where last year she was named among ``Best Ten Younger Writers''is woven through these richly diverse stories in a first short story collection by Hospital. In this aptly titled gathering, we experience the uprootedness of people whose lives are changed by circumstances over which they have no control. ``Happy Diwali'' follows two young lovers, Indians living in Canada; the parkas and ski caps they must wear in this cold climate are in strange contrast with saris and other colorful adornments appropriate for the celebration of a traditional festival. In ``Moving Out,'' an elderly Canadian widow is differently displaced and begins a painful coping with the large, noisy Chinese family that has moved in next door. Notable for its wry interpretation of a social reality is ``Mosie.'' The central character is a street-wise black cleaning lady in the employ of Columbia University who shepherds one of her clients, a Chaucer-spouting widow, through the mine field of a neighborhood in transition. In these portrayals of people who feel ``other'' wherever they happen to be, a sense of place is captured in nuances of speech and emotions. Hospital's novels include the Seal Award-winning The Ivory Swing. (September)
Hospital, author of three novels, here presents 17 stories variously set in Australia, where she was born, and in India, Canada, and New York, where she has lived. In ``Happy Diwali'' a group of emigre Indians wear quilted eiderdown over their delicate Kashmiri silk to guard against the fierce Canadian winter. They cover themselves with outer garments of necessity and assimilation, keeping their own culture underneath. In ``After Long Absence'' the narrator tells us, ``I know about words . . . about the depth charges they carry.'' Returning to her childhood home in Australia, beset by old, unresolved conflicts, she is acutely aware of these depth charges. Like all of us, Hospital's characters are dislocated by events in the past that intrude and warp the present. Thoughtful stories, written with grace and a generous spirit.Marcia Tager, Tenafly, N.J.
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