The Innocence of Age

by Neil Bissoondath

French

Genres: Fiction, Canada

308 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

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

[Dani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mesmerizing. This is a really beautiful book about two people, young and old, father and son, coming together and drifting apart. Very rarely does a book do such a good job towards painting two opposite positions with so much in common; but I suppose its best said that the main message of the book leaned towards "Industrialization = bad". There were just so many elements to clash and weave together; race, culture, generational, ethical. All in all, it painted a lovely, disturbing and colorful image of a Toronto emerging into the 20th century, one that I can't say that I have ever seen or understood. You'll never see Canada's most hated city the same way ever again; I found the book courageous.

[Benjamin Kahn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book a long time ago, but just remember loving it. I recommended it to everyone that I could (I used to work in a bookstore), and everybody that took the recommendation also loved it. It's a great book. I had read all of Bissoondath's books to that point and it was far and away his best. Just a great book about a father and son and their relationship.

[Foreign]

French editor: Daniel Arsand