“Champ de Mars” by Mireille Silcoff
Recommended by House of Anasi Press
Issue No. 119
Ellen Wölke was the shape of an apple, round and enormous. She had been heavy for years—and every year it surprised her, the way it surprises a person to learn that they graduated forty years ago, not ten. Still, she knew it to be different now, because when she ate, people watched. People used to look at Ellen for other reasons, this wispy woman, with long, rib-skimming hair the color of red milky tea. Now it was only: how does such size happen? (Or if they knew Ellen: yes, that’s how that size happens.)
Read the full story here!
About the Author
Mireille Silcoff’s debut short story collection, Chez l'Arabe, was published in August by House of Anansi. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Walrus, and The National Post, where she writes a weekly column. She is the founding editor of Guilt & Pleasure Quarterly, a magazine of Jewish writing and ideas. The recipient of two National Magazine Awards, she lives in Montreal.
About the Guest Editor
House of Anansi Press was founded in 1967 by writers Dennis Lee and David Godfrey. Anansi started as a small press with a mandate to publish Canadian writers, and quickly gained attention for publishing authors such as Margaret Atwood, Matt Cohen, Michael Ondaatje, and Erín Moure, as well as George Grant and Northrop Frye. French-Canadian works in translation have always been an important part of the list, and prominent Anansi authors in translation include Roch Carrier, Marie-Claire Blais, and France Daigle. Today, the company specializes in finding and developing Canadian writers of literary fiction, poetry, and nonfiction, and in maintaining the culturally significant backlist that has accumulated in the decades since the house was founded.
“Champs de Mars” copyright © 2014 by Mireille Silcoff, from Chez l'arabe (House of Anasi Press). Reprinted by permission of Author.
