Books by Amanda Hale
Books by Amanda Hale
POMEGRANATE
Poems by Amanda Hale
A lesbian love story set in the Villa of Mysteries in ancient Pompeii.
Hale’s poems have inspired her libretto for an original opera – Pomegranate – themed on the endurance of love across time. The Pomegranate lovers are transported from 79AD Pompeii to a downtown Toronto lesbian bar in 1981, on the night after the infamous Bathhouse Raids.
Pomegranate premiered in Toronto June 2023 in a Canadian Opera Company production, with standing ovations and sold-out houses!
An ambitious work … that underlines themes of identity, acceptance and the role of community … ending on a powerful, hopeful note. Catherine Kustanczy, Globe and Mail
Dramatically striking. History is transformed, personalized, captured in close up — a highly effective piece of theatrical magic. Kye Marshall’s music completely enthralls with its frequent, emotionally-charged changes of tune. Ian Ritchie, Opera Going Toronto
NOW SCHEDULED FOR A VANCOUVER OPERA PRODUCTION August 1 & 2, 2024. For a sneak peek, please check out https://vimeo.com/827725655/a59a95b46c for The making of Pomegranate or watch the trailer below!
Watch NEWS & EVENTS page for release of ticket sales for Vancouver.
MAD HATTER
When Christopher Brooke is arrested under Regulation 18B in June 1940 a slow process of personal disintegration begins, affecting his family irreversibly. Moving from the pre-war political era of Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, Mad Hatter delves into the wartime lives of Britons, and tracks them into the aftermath in a disturbing but ultimately transcendent story of a daughter’s search for family history.
This fictionalized memoir, following Christopher Brooke from pacifism into delusional extremism, is told with subtlety and compassion. I am left exhilarated by Amanda Hale’s ability to tell her experience with such insight and candour. Susan Crean, author of Finding Mr. Wong
Mad Hatter is a fictionalized memoir that marries the clarity of childhood perception with the wisdom of adult recall.
Mad Hatter is a fictionalized memoir that marries the clarity of childhood perception with the wisdom of adult recall.
MAD HATTER
Guernica Editions, 2019
When Christopher Brooke is arrested under Regulation 18B in June 1940 a slow process of personal disintegration begins, affecting his family irreversibly. Irish farm girl, Mary Byrne, is hired as housekeeper of the Brooke household and proves an acute observer of the daily lives of Cynthia Brooke and her three children. But when Mary is shockingly expelled from the house upon Christopher’s release from internment, 15-month-old Katie – conceived on a prison leave and now speaking from adulthood – takes over as narrator. Moving from the pre-war political era of Ishiguro’s The Remains of the Day, Mad Hatter delves into the wartime lives of Britons, and tracks them into the aftermath in a disturbing but ultimately transcendent story of a daughter’s search for family history. Mad Hatter charts the slow unraveling of a marriage and the tightening of its children in the devastation of post-war England as the story of the Brooke family moves inexorably to a tragic conclusion in which Mary Byrne is once again embraced by the family, but in a most surprising manner.
A beautiful book about a difficult story. This fictionalized memoir, following Christopher Brooke from pacifism into delusional extremism, is told with subtlety and compassion. I am left exhilarated by Amanda Hale’s ability to tell her experience with such insight and candour. Susan Crean, author of Finding Mr. Wong
If you think the fascist politics of Oswald Mosley is old hat, read Mad Hatter and think again. Amanda Hale, drawing on childhood experience, brings emotional intelligence to bear on the fatal marriage of personal and political. Ted Goodden, author of Glory Boy
ANGELA OF THE STONES
Thistledown Press, 2018
A second collection of linked stories set in Baracoa, Cuba.
Stories connected by place and a cast of overlapping characters, with themes repeated in a haunting symphony of nostalgia for the past.
“All of Cuba is a museum now. We live off our old Revolution,” laments Gertrudis, one in a cast of characters teetering on the verge of political change while held in the grip of the past.
These new stories are so powerful, the characters so vivid. Amanda is not a tourist in my country. Her writing on Cuba comes from the heart. Tomás López Sánchez, Cuban writer and Art Curator
The characters are simply unforgettable. Amanda Hale writes with deep sympathy and respect, feelings that can only spring from a close and emotional involvement with the Cuban people. Manuel García Verdecia, Cuban poet and translator
IN THE EMBRACE OF THE ALLIGATOR
A portrait of the Cuban town of Baracoa, clasped by a fist of rivers flowing from jungle mountains to Caribbean-Atlantic oceans.
MY SWEET CURIOSITY
explores the border between fact and fiction, the relation between medical science and music, and the enduring mysteries of the human body.
The Reddening Path
The story of a Guatemalan adoptee’s journey home to search for her birth mother.
SOUNDING THE BLOOD
Hale’s award-finalist debut novel, set in 1915 on a whaling station on the southern tip of the Queen Charlotte Islands (now renamed Haida Gwaii, home of the Haida Nation)
CROCODILE SUGAR
An illustrated meditation on a mural-painting experience in Marianao, Cuba
Anecdotes & images provide windows on the lives of my Cuban and Guatemalan friends
EN BRAZOS DEL CAIMÁN
Spanish translation of IN THE EMBRACE OF THE ALLIGATOR, linked Cuban stories, from Baracoa to Havana
MI DULCE CURIOSIDAD
Spanish translation of MY SWEET CURIOSITY, the story of Natalya Kulikovsky, a medical student as curious as the ground-breaking Renaissance anatomist, Andreas Vesalius.
La Ruta Escarlata
Spanish translation of THE REDDENING PATH, the story of Paméla’s return to Guatemala to search for her birth mother.