Mobólúwajídìde D. Joseph

In the penultimate chapter of My Indian Summer, the twelve-year-old protagonist, Hunter, is shocked to learn that his mother, a residential school survivor, once wanted to become a nurse. He hates Margarette, after all. Her drinking, her abuse, and all her other parental failures make it impossible for him to feel safe at…

Kamal Al-Solaylee arrived in Toronto in April 1996, having already left England, where he was educated, Lebanon and Egypt, where he was raised, and Yemen, where he was born. Looking back, twenty-five years later, he describes how he came to “see Toronto (and Canada) as my homeland.” He “revelled” in the city’s kindness and the opportunities it…

Toward the end of grade 6, Ian Williams asked if he could play the French horn (the same instrument that his crush played). “The music teacher shook her head,” he recalls in Disorientation, his recent collection of essays. “I supposed I had failed the pitch test. I was prepared to try again.” But the teacher was more concerned with his lips than with his…