Anita Anand was born in Montreal and lives there today where she is an author, translator and language teacher. She has lived in the Bronx, England, and Richmond, B.C. Her first novel, Swing in the House and Other Stories is told in a series of vignettes. Anand was a finalist for the CBC’s Quebec Writing Competition in 2012.
Fiction
A Convergence of Solitudes
Toronto: Book*Hug Press, 2022.
PS8601.N28 C66 2022
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
A story of identity, connection and forgiveness, A Convergence of Solitudes shares the lives of two families across Partition of India, Operation Babylift in Vietnam, and two referendums in Quebec.
Sunil and Hima, teenage lovers, bravely defy taboos in pre-Partition India to come together as their country divides in two. They move across the world to Montreal and raise a family, but Sunil shows symptoms of schizophrenia, shattering their newfound peace. As a teenager, their daughter Rani becomes obsessed with Quebecois supergroup Sensibilité—and, in particular, the band’s charismatic, nationalistic frontman, Serge Giglio—whose music connects Rani to the province’s struggle for cultural freedom. A chance encounter leads Rani to babysit Mélanie, Serge’s adopted daughter from Vietnam, bringing her fleetingly within his inner circle.
Years later, Rani, now a college guidance counselor, discovers that Mélanie has booked an appointment to discuss her future at the school. Unmoved by her father’s staunch patriotism and her British mother’s bourgeois ways, Mélanie is struggling with deep uncertainty about her identity and belonging. As the two women’s lives become more and more intertwined, Rani’s fascination with Mélanie’s father’s music becomes a strange shadow amidst their friendship.
Fiction (Short stories)
Swing in the House and Other Stories
Montreal: Esplanade Books, 2015.
PS8601 .N28 S95 2015
Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)
Swing in the House paints an utterly contemporary portrait of Canadian families in their most private moments. Anand pulls back the curtains to reveal the unspoken complexities within the modern home, from sibling rivalries to fracturing marriages, casual racism to damaged egos, hidden homosexuality to mental illness. Each of these stories offers a deftly-constructed morality play. In the novella-length title story, a young mother timidly explores the possibilities of an affair to alleviate the suffocation of a loveless marriage, to detrimental effect. In “Indelible Markers,” a girl vacationing in Greece learns that growing up with a schizophrenic father has affected her relationships with men. In “Something Steady,” a lonely, mentally challenged teen vents his anger on a co-worker’s boyfriend. Throughout, Anand’s incisive intelligence, sharp prose, and sly wit infuse dark undercurrents into these seventeen cautionary tales.
Awards and Honours
2015 Concordia University First Book Prize–Quebec Writers’ Federation (Winner)
2016 Relit Award for Fiction (Finalist)
2016 Montreal Literary Diversity Prize (Finalist)
Links
Publisher Book*hug Press
Publisher Véhicule Press, of which Esplanade Books is the fiction imprint