Skip to main content Skip to search Skip to search

Fiction Literary

The Letter Opener

by (author) Kyo Maclear

Publisher
HarperCollins Canada
Initial publish date
Mar 2012
Category
Literary
  • eBook

    ISBN
    9781443403238
    Publish Date
    Mar 2012
    List Price
    $11.99
  • Hardback

    ISBN
    9780002006071
    Publish Date
    Feb 2007
    List Price
    $32.95
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9780002008945
    Publish Date
    Feb 2008
    List Price
    $22.99

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

Naiko works in the Undeliverable Mail Office where, immersed in things lost and missing, she searches for clues to match undeliverable mail with addresses. Her job allows her to achieve a semblance of order in a disorderly world. It is a shock, then, when Naiko’s co-worker Andrei, an enigmatic Romanian refugee, suddenly vanishes.

This astonishing debut novel unfolds in compelling, delicately wrought layers. Naiko’s shifting understanding of Andrei’s past becomes an opaque reflection of her own existence, and objects—from the pens hoarded by Naiko’s mother in her retirement home to the personal effects of Jewish women that Andrei’s grandmother sorts through at Birkenau—become touchstones for memories and meaning, loss and love.

About the author

KYO MACLEAR was born in London and grew up in Toronto as the only child of a foreign correspondent. Her father reported on some significant world events, including recording the first interviews with American POWs in North Vietnam. While Stray Love is entirely a work of fiction, it is informed by her experiences living with her father. Her first novel, The Letter Opener (2007), was awarded the K.M. Hunter Artists Award and shortlisted for the Amazon/Books in Canada First Novel Award. Maclear is also an award-winning visual arts writer and the author of two children’s books: Spork (2010) and Virginia Wolf (2012). Visit her online at www.kyomaclear.ca.

Kyo Maclear's profile page

Awards

  • OLA Evergreen Award

Other titles by

Related lists