Not in Vain You’ve Sent Me Light begins with a provocative, sometimes humorous exposé of two lovers and their collisions and triumphs, and evolves into a high-voltage portrait gallery, depicting heroes and artists, scientists and politicians, mothers and their conflicted daughters. Cora Siré draws on a multi-dimensional palette to deepen her exploration of identity, displacement and the cosmic powers of love and art.

Cora Siré lives in Montréal where she writes fiction, essays and poetry. She is the author of two novels, Behold Things Beautiful (Signature Editions, 2016), The Other Oscar (Quattro Books, 2016) and Signs of Subversive Innocents (Signature Editions, 2014), a collection of poetry. Her work has been shortlisted for various literary prizes. Born in Canada, she often writes of elsewheres, drawing on her encounters in faraway places as well as her family’s history of displacement.

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Siré uses memory as a bridge to realization, and subtle humour as a path to truth rather than a way to allude it. Her words dig into the depths of people’s identities – ourselves, lovers, family and friends, strangers – to discover how much we can only guess at or what we might never know even over the course of a lifetime.

Montreal Review of Books