Gerhard and Albrecht Storr are twins, though they share little in common beyond an eccentric upbringing. Raised by a father devoted to the powers of “Personal Magnetism” and a German-immigrant mother unhappy with life in Winnipeg and obsessed with the ghosts of her past, the two brothers grow further and further apart, eventually fighting on opposite sides of the Second World War.

Exhaustion is overwhelming Fika, a young Soviet woman crossing the Polar icecap bound for Canada. It’s midwinter 1960, and she’s lost her companions to a frosty death, can barely carry her own supplies, and must ski for another month to reach civilization.

How these two gripping tales on their separate sides of the globe unfold and come together is one of the many accomplishments of this extraordinary story. With Marilyn Bowering’s superb gift for storytelling, finely realized characters, and lyrical language, Visible Worlds resonates with the mystery and mysticism of the worlds we see and those we can only imagine.

Marilyn Bowering has had two previous volumes of poetry nominated for the Governor General's Award: Autobiography and The Sunday Before Winter. The former also won the Pat Lowther Award. Her novel Visible Worlds received the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the prestigious Orange Prize. Bowering is also the author of Human Bodies: New and Selected Poems and the novel To All Appearances A Lady. She lives in Sooke, British Columbia.

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