Michael Ondaatje's The Cat's Table, reviewed by Linda Leith
Linda Leith's review of Michael Ondaatje's great new novel, The Cat's Table in the Montreal Gazette.
Sivan Slapak converses with Lisa Newman about her debut book Here is Still Here on The Yiddish Book Center's podcast, The Shmooze. Listen here
Sivan Slapak
May 2024
$22.95 | ISBN: 9781773901466
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Sivan Slapak lived in Jerusalem for twenty years before returning to Canada in 2013. Since then, her short fiction and essays have been published by The New Quarterly, Montreal Serai, and carte blanche and in collections published by Véhicule Press and Guernica Editions. She was selected as a finalist for the CBC Quebec Writing Competition, won the Peter Hinchcliffe Fiction Award once and was shortlisted twice. She lives in Montreal, where she works in the arts and culture sector. Here Is Still Here is her first book.
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Linda Leith's review of Michael Ondaatje's great new novel, The Cat's Table in the Montreal Gazette.
It might be that this relationship between writer and publisher is what is most in danger in the digital revolution.
Writers are always complaining they don’t have enough time to write, even those who are “full-time” writers. I used to find that puzzling, but now that I have joined the ranks of full-time writers, I understand better. The question, “When do you write?” is not a silly question. This is why writers are careful to broach it only with close friends. The answer has something to do with what I write – and a lot to do with whether I write at all.

My father died twenty years ago and I cannot listen to Leonard Cohen without mourning him. As I write, I’m listening to his copy of Cohen’s album Songs from a Room. “What is a saint?” Cohen asks in Beautiful Losers, and he answers himself, “I think it has something to do with the energy of love.”