Awards

• Short-listed for Governor General's Literary Award Fiction 2020 (Canada)
• Short-listed for Governor General’s Literary Award Fiction 2020 (Canada)

Overview

One morning, the poet Hazel Brown wakes up in a strange hotel room to find that she's written the complete works of Charles Baudelaire. Surprising as this may be, it's no more surprising to Brown than the impossible journey she's taken to become the writer that she is. Animated by the spirit of the poète maudit, she shuttles between London, Vancouver, Paris, and the French countryside, moving fluidly between the early 1980s and the present, from rented room to rented room, all the while considering such Baudelairian obsessions as modernity, poverty, and the perfect jacket... Part memoir, part magical realism, part hilarious trash-talking take on contemporary art and the poet's life, The Baudelaire Fractal is the long-awaited debut novel by the incomparable Lisa Robertson.

Full Product Details

9781552453902

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Reviews

It's brilliant, strange, and unlike anything I've read before. - BOOKRIOT An intense if abstract portrait of the poet as a young woman in search of a kind of language that might lead to liberation. - The Kirkus Reviews And perhaps that's what Robertson, with this demanding, erudite, and quite remarkable novel, is telling us is required to return those who have been expunged from the pages of liturature: time and effort. - Quill & Quire Robertson, with feminist wit, a dash of kink, and a generous brain, has written an urtext that tenders there can be, in fact, or in fiction, no such thing. Hers is a boon for readers and writers, now and in the future. - Bookforum A difficult work of ideas, by turns enlightening and arcane, part autobiographical narrative, part literary theory, Robertson's debut novel, for those interested in possibilities of fiction, is not to be missed. - Publisher's Weekly Things happen in the novel but none so much as the sentences themselves, they are the events; each sentence invites mediation, pause, excitement. - BOMB Magazine

Robertson, with feminist wit, a dash of kink, and a generous brain, has written an urtext that tenders there can be, in fact, or in fiction, no such thing. Hers is a boon for readers and writers, now and in the future. - Bookforum Things happen in the novel but none so much as the sentences themselves, they are the events; each sentence invites mediation, pause, excitement. - BOMB Magazine It's brilliant, strange, and unlike anything I've read before. - BOOKRIOT An intense if abstract portrait of the poet as a young woman in search of a kind of language that might lead to liberation. - The Kirkus Reviews And perhaps that's what Robertson, with this demanding, erudite, and quite remarkable novel, is telling us is required to return those who have been expunged from the pages of liturature: time and effort. - Quill & Quire A difficult work of ideas, by turns enlightening and arcane, part autobiographical narrative, part literary theory, Robertson's debut novel, for those interested in possibilities of fiction, is not to be missed. - Publisher's Weekly

Author Information

Lisa Robertson is a Canadian poet and essayist. Born in Toronto in 1961, she was a longtime resident of Vancouver, where in the early 90s she began writing, publishing and collaborating in a community of artists and poets that included Artspeak Gallery and The Kootenay School of Writing. She has continued these activities for 30 years, publishing books, leaflets and posters, translating poetry and linguistics from French, lecturing and teaching internationally, and continuing her ongoing study into the political constitution of lyric voice. In 2017 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Letters by Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and in 2018, the Foundation for the Contemporary Arts in NY awarded her the inaugural CD Wright Award in Poetry. She has taught at Cambridge University, Princeton, UC Berkeley, California College of the Arts, Piet Zwart Institute, Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and American University of Paris, as well as holding research and residency positions at institutions across Canada, the US, and Europe. Lisa currently lives in France.  Lisa Robertson is a Canadian poet and essayist. Born in Toronto in 1961, she was a longtime resident of Vancouver, where in the early 90s she began writing, publishing and collaborating in a community of artists and poets that included Artspeak Gallery and The Kootenay School of Writing. She has continued these activities for 30 years, publishing books, leaflets and posters, translating poetry and linguistics from French, lecturing and teaching internationally, and continuing her ongoing study into the political constitution of lyric voice. In 2017 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Letters by Emily Carr University of Art and Design, and in 2018, the Foundation for the Contemporary Arts in NY awarded her the inaugural CD Wright Award in Poetry. She has taught at Cambridge University, Princeton, UC Berkeley, California College of the Arts, Piet Zwart Institute, Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and American University of Paris, as well as holding research and residency positions at institutions across Canada, the US, and Europe. Lisa currently lives in France. 

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