Gail Scott

This collection of essays examines the varied and influential work of Montreal writer Gail Scott, the feminist and experimental writer who placed Quebec women's writing on the map. Whether working as a bilingual journalist covering political and cultural events in 1970s Quebec, an anglophone writing with the many languages of Montreal in her ears, or a queer writer whose work with "new narrative" links her with writers across the United States, Scott transforms the spaces between communities into spaces of cultural and intellectual possibility. These essays explore her novels, essays, and short stories, which engage a range of issues central to contemporary thought including: the porosity of the subject; the body as sensory interface; history as montage; the novel as multimedia installation; the cosmopolitan center as capitalist and colonialist ruin; and realism as an accumulation of time frames, angles of vision, and events going on simultaneously in different spaces.