Acclaimed poet P. K. Page weaves together an astonishing range of characters and themes in this remarkable selection of stories written over the last fifty years and collected here for the first time. A Kind of Fiction bears witness to an accomplished prose stylist and displays the same lively and witty intelligence that established her reputation as one of Canada’s finest poets.
Page emerges as a writer with an agile and playful imagination, comfortable with a range of narrative styles that include the comic and surreal plots of her early pieces from the 1940s, adaptations of Indian and Sufi tales, and the complex psychological portraits of her recent work. Despite the variety of styles and themes, all the stories in this collection bear the imprint of a refined artistic vision and a sense of technique and form which has been the defining characteristic of her distinguished body of poetry.
P.K. Page has written some of the best poems published in Canada for over five decades. In addition to winning the Governor General’s award for poetry in 1957, she was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada in 1999. She is the author of more than a dozen books, which include ten volumes of poetry, a novel, selected short stories, three books for children, and a memoir entitled Brazilian Journal based on her extended stay in Brazil. A two-volume edition of her collected poems, The Hidden Room (PQL), was published in 1997.