Newfoundland in Canada, says writer Michael Crumey, is a lot like India — a land steeped in tradition, folklore and age-old beliefs, where superstition and science dance in sync and history travels down to children through poetry and songs. It’s also a land that fires up storytellers — among them 44-year-old Crummey, whose latest book
Galore has been shortlisted in the Best Book category at the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. “Both India and Newfoundland are defined by their folklore and traditional stories, so much so that a story of one place can well be a story of the other ,” says Crummey, in the Capital for the award ceremony on Monday.
Galore begins with a man being cut out of the body of a whale, and as the author admits candidly, the plot gets “stranger from there”. The storyline captures the history of Newfoundland through the lives of two families — one Irish Catholic and the other English Protestant—and the animosity between them. “Over the generations, several boys and girls of the two families fall in love but it is never requited. The story plays out almost like a metaphor of life—something we all love, but which eventually gives up on us,” says Crummey.
Full report here Indian Express
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