Book
Cockroach / Rawi Hage.
The novel takes place during one month of a bitterly cold winter in Montreal's restless immigrant community, where a self-described "thief" has just tried but failed to commit suicide by hanging himself from a tree in a local park. Rescued against his will, the narrator is obliged to attend sessions with a well-intentioned but naïve therapist. This sets the story in motion, leading us back to the narrator's violent childhood in a war-torn country, forward into his current life in the smoky émigré cafés where everyone has a tale, and out into the frozen night-time streets of Montreal, where the thief survives on the edge, imagining himself to be a cockroach invading the lives of the privileged, but willfully blind, citizens who surround him. Like De Niro's Game, Cockroach combines an uncompromising vision of humanity with razor-sharp portraits of society's outsiders, and a startling, poetic sensibility with bracing jolts of dark humour.
Record details
- ISBN: 0887842097
- ISBN: 9780887842092 :
- ISBN: 9780887848346
- Physical Description: 305 p. ; 21 cm.
- Publisher: Toronto : Anansi, 2008.
Content descriptions
| General Note: | Some copies: 2009. |
Search for related items by subject
| Subject: | Therapist and patient > Fiction. Immigrants > Canada > Fiction. Montréal (Québec) > Fiction. |
| Genre: | Canadian fiction. Psychological fiction. Psychological fiction. |
Available copies
- 18 of 18 copies available at BC Interlibrary Connect. (Show)
- 1 of 1 copy available at Prince Rupert Library.
Holds
- 1 current hold with 18 total copies.
Other Formats and Editions
Show Only Available Copies
| Location | Call Number / Copy Notes | Barcode | Shelving Location | Holdable? | Status | Due Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prince Rupert Library | Hage (Text) | 33294001622125 | Adult Fiction - Second Floor | Volume hold | Available | - |
- Perseus PublishingCockroach is as urgent, unsettling, and brilliant as Rawi Hage's bestselling and critically acclaimed first book, De Niro's Game
The novel takes place during one month of a bitterly cold winter in Montreal's restless immigrant community, where a self-described thief has just tried but failed to commit suicide. Rescued against his will, the narrator is obliged to attend sessions with a well-intentioned but naive therapist. This sets the story in motion, leading us back to the narrator's violent childhood in a war-torn country, forward into his current life in the smoky emigre cafes where everyone has a tale, and out into the frozen night-time streets of Montreal, where the thief survives on the edge, imagining himself to be a cockroach invading the lives of the privileged, but wilfully blind, citizens who surround him.
In 2008, Cockroach was a finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the Governor General's Literary Award, and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. It won the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction, presented by the Quebec Writers' Federation.
