The Sea: A Literary Companion

by Wayne Grady (Editor)

The sea is one of most vital and recurring images in human culture, and one of its most enduring literary metaphors. Whether roiled in a fury or flattened in a dead calm, the sea has stirred the creative muse of legions of writers across the ages and around the world. The 25 writers collected here share a love, fear, and deep respect for the power of the oceans. Charles Dickens sails readers into a violent storm off the coast of England, Charles Darwin is fascinated with the glowing phosphorescence of the nighttime sea, and Jack London and his bedraggled crew weather a calm in the mid-Pacific. From three versions of the Biblical flood to Yann Martel’s modern ark story, each piece embarks the reader on an unforgettable voyage, fraught with peril and charged with the awe-inspiring power of the sea.

176 pages, Hardcover

First published May 5, 2009

About the author

Wayne Grady is the award-winning author of Emancipation Day, a novel of denial and identity. He has also written such works of science and nature as The Bone Museum, Bringing Back the Dodo, The Quiet Limit of the World, and The Great Lakes, which won a National Outdoor Book Award in the U.S. With his wife, novelist Merilyn Simonds, he co-authored Breakfast at the Exit Café: Travels Through America. And with David Suzuki he co-wrote the international bestseller Tree: A Life Story.

He has also translated fourteen works of fiction from the French, by such authors as Antonine Maillet, Yves Beauchemin, and Danny Laferrière. In 1989, he won the Governor General’s Award for his translation of Maillet’s On the Eighth Day. His most recent translation is of Louis Hamelin’s October 1970, published by House of Anansi Press in 2013.

Grady teaches creative writing in the optional-residency MFA program at the University of British Columbia. He and Merilyn Simonds live in the country north of Kingston, Ontario.