Captivity Tales – Canadians in New York

ISBN: 0-921586-32-9
Publisher: New Star Books

A poetic compilation, like a Hieronymous Bosch scene, pulsing with images and sounds that resonate against one another… A bittersweet chorale of whispers about absence and longing. I recommend bending an ear.”
—Books in Canada

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About the Book

“Captivity tales,” stories of settlers kidnapped by Indians, are turned on their head in this book about captivity in the city.

Stranded in Manhattan with her family, Elizabeth Hay searches for company and finds it in the lives of other Canadians who have come to New York City, among them, Inuit visitors in the nineteenth century and various artists like Michael Snow, Joyce Wieland, Glenn Gould and Teresa Stratas. In searching out their stories, Hay finds a new map, an underworld of memory and connection, which offers a way home.

A fresh, engaging exploration of personal and cultural identity, Captivity Tales evokes the desperate need to find yourself by losing yourself, and to return home by escaping from it.