Digging Up the Mountains

by Neil Bissoondath, David Staines

soft cover

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories

256 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

Neil Devindra Bissoondath, novelist, short-story writer, essayist (b at Arima, Trinidad and Tobago 19 Apr 1955). He attended St Mary's College in Port of Spain before emigrating to Canada in 1973, when he became a student at York University (BA 1977). After graduating, he began teaching English as a second language and French in Toronto. Bissoondath began writing short stories in the late seventies, and attended the Banff School of Fine Arts in 1983. He credits his uncle, author V.S. Naipaul, for providing inspiration. Bissoondath's first book, a collection of short stories called Digging Up the Mountains (1985), deals with feelings of cultural alienation, exile and domestic upheaval - themes he has continued to explore in his other writings. The book was a commercial and critical success, enabling Bissoondath to leave teaching for a number of years and devote himself to writing full-time. In 1995 he relocated to Québec City, where he teaches Creative Writing at Université Laval.
Bissoondath published a second collection of short stories, On the Eve of Uncertain Tomorrows, in 1990. Most of his fiction has taken the form of novels, beginning with A Casual Brutality (1988), set in the fictional Caribbean republic of Casaquemada. The Innocence of Age (1993) is the story of intergenerational tensions in an increasingly racist Toronto. Bissoondath's novels often focus on characters confronting their respective pasts. The protagonist in GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARD nominee The Worlds Within Her (1998) returns to her Caribbean birthplace in order to deliver her mother's ashes. In Doing the Heart Good (2002), an elderly anglophone Montrealer reevaluates his life after losing his possessions to an arsonist. The Unyielding Clamour of the Night (2005) deals with a young schoolteacher who leaves a privileged upbringing to encounter political, religious, and racial unrest in a fictional island state modelled on Sri Lanka.
Bissoondath's most controversial and best-selling book is Selling Illusions: The Cult of Multiculturalism in Canada (1994, rev. 2002). In this nonfiction work, Bissoondath criticizes the 1971 MULTICULTURALISM Act for emphasizing differences rather than similarities amongst the country's various ethnic groups. He argues that the country's multicultural policies, though well-intentioned, have only encouraged the isolation and stereotyping of cultural groups.

Reviews

[Greta · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his first collection of stories we learn about refugees from Trinidad, Japan and other countries. Toronto is a popular destination for the refugees in most of his short stories, being a resident himself informs his descriptions of the adjustments needed to survive. My heart goes out to refugees and I like reading their stories.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these stories were very moving, like the last one ("Counting The Wind"), but overall it seemed somewhat derivative to me, like Conrad meets Naipaul. A few of the stories had simply loathsome characters, and I don't doubt that such creatures exist, but it wasn't clear why stories need to be devoted to them. Several of the stories appeared to be set in the author's native Trinidad, but location was usually just implied rather than explicitly stated. A fairly consistent theme is that of the person with no home to call home, whether in the Caribbean, in Japan, in Canada, or wherever. A little of that goes a long way, and there is more than a little here.

[Brittany · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actual Rating: 3.5/5

Okay, so this took me a lot longer to read then I had hoped. All of this short stories had an interesting and heartbreaking stories. I enjoyed each one, but I found the writing style a little too daunting and I think that's why it took me so long and it took away my over all feelings towards each story.

[Kathy · Rating 1 out of 5]

Three words: humourless, cold, overwritten.

This collection reads like the output of someone who has just taken a creative writing course. Bissoondath is too keen on descriptive detail and too weak on plot and characterisation. The cover blurb trumpets the fact that he is the nephew of VS Naipaul and even features an endorsement from uncle Vidia. Nephew, yes; origin of the word nepotism. I suppose it must exist in the publishing world because this book really doesn't merit the rave reviews that it appears to have got.

[Ibis3]

NCL.2006-10-01

[Buddy]

Short stories by nephew of V.S. Naipaul.