The Insomniac Library is proud to reissue Gwendolyn MacEwen's first novel, more than forty years after its original appearance in 1963. MacEwen described what she set out to achieve as a "sort of powerful poetic mad half-abandoned prose somewhere between [Kenneth] Patchen and Virginia Woolf." Set in a medieval past that has distinctly modern overtones, the novel is about Julian, a young man who believes he is Christ. Wandering the countryside in a horse-drawn wagon, Julian learns "to suspend logic like a whale on a thread." He becomes a master of alchemy, performing "miracles" like curing the mad and changing water into wine. When his rapt audiences begins to lose faith, Julian must pay with his life.

Gwendolyn MacEwen was born in Toronto in 1941 and died there in 1987. A writer of great talent and versatility, she wrote novels, travel books, children's books and radio drama, as well as poetry books including The Shadow-Maker (1969) and Afterworlds (1987), both of which won Governor General's Awards. She published two collections of short stories, Noman (1972) and Noman's Land (1985), which includes "The Other Country," a prize winner in the 1983 CBC Canadian Literary Awards.

Gwendolyn MacEwen's profile page