Reading Time: 6 minutes Mr. Sammler’s Planet follows its one-eyed protagonist’s travels around New York City and comments on American society circa 1969. Alice Munro is not the only Canadian-born writer who has won the Nobel Prize for Literature. So too did Saul Bellow, born in 1915 in Lachine (then a town outside Montreal but now part of it). […]
About Rob Normey
LAW & LITERATURE | Stateless but Not Powerless
Reading Time: 5 minutes The most compelling new novel I read in 2020 is Daughters of Smoke and Fire from debut Kurdish-Canadian novelist Ava Homa. This dynamic advocacy piece for Kurds and women’s rights in the Middle East was also the inaugural recipient of the PEN Canada Writers in Exile Scholarship.
LAW & LITERATURE | Two Human Rights Heroes
Reading Time: 5 minutes The year 2020 has been a time of great rupture and adversity. Around the globe, we have seen the rise of a large number of authoritarian, hard-right rulers who have demonstrated contempt for democratic values. Their actions have seriously undermined the fundamental rights of their own citizens, and demonstrated a callous disregard for refugees and […]
LAW & LITERATURE | Richard Wright’s Native Son: Dread in Chicago’s desolate South Side
Reading Time: 4 minutes As I write, impassioned protests in Kenosha and elsewhere attest to the anguish experienced by many Americans at the racialized violence meted out to African Americans. The incomprehensible shooting in the back of Jacob Blake, father of three, by a white police officer is the latest in a string of recent shootings and assaults. Shocking […]
The Rise of the Digital Robber Barons: Is government up to the task at hand?
Reading Time: 8 minutes Given Canada’s history, we can anticipate that any plans for the federal government to use its “super powers” could erode our civil liberties. We must vigilantly protect fundamental rights and look to the courts to affirm, and in some instances extend, the reach of our Charter protections should government threaten our rights. However, in this […]
LAW & LITERATURE | 1919 by John Dos Passos: A requiem for the defeated and outcasts
Reading Time: 5 minutes I have always intended to work my way through all three volumes of Dos Passos’ U.S.A. trilogy, published between 1930 and 1936 and clocking in at 1,300 pages. During today’s strange pandemic times, I have taken advantage of the opportunity to do so. And I can tell you that, while at times it was a […]
LAW & LITERATURE | Democracy in Ruins: Flaubert’s Sentimental Education and the fate of radical Democrats
Reading Time: 5 minutes I recently read Peter Brook’s book Flaubert in the Ruins of Paris: The Story of a Friendship, a Novel and a Terrible Year. The book provides a fascinating account of the composition and the literary and wider political history of Gustave Flaubert’s 1869 novel Sentimental Education. Brook’s book led me to return to Flaubert’s difficult […]
Searching for Hopeful Signs in a Dark Wood, Rapidly Shrinking: Laws to address the climate emergency
Reading Time: 7 minutes Missing In Action Donald Trump continues to audition for the job of World’s Greatest Practical Joker. You may have heard about the pending release of a new book by Edward Russo, entitled Donald J Trump: An Environmental Hero. Russo is a consultant who has advised Trump. He is also a staunch Trump loyalist. Recently, when […]
LAW & LITERATURE | Gold Dust Nations: The Ayn Rand effect
Reading Time: 6 minutes In 1977, Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac sang “Gold Dust Woman, … take your sliver spoon , dig your grave.” A mere two years later, Margaret Thatcher was elected prime minister of Britain. She declared there is no such thing as society, and progressive politics based on democratic socialism must be defeated at every turn. […]
Re-opening the Case of L’Etranger
Reading Time: 4 minutes Albert Camus’ early masterpiece The Stranger, published in 1942, is an enigmatic fable that has entranced generations of readers. One such reader, the Algerian journalist Kamel Daoud, has expressed his admiration for Camus’ writings. Despite his appreciation, he also poses serious questions about a glaring omission in The Stranger. The central act in the novel […]
