Permanent Revolution
Essays
Finalist for the 2021 Grand Prix du livre de Montreal
"A writer may do as she pleases with her epoch. Rage accumulates."
From iconic feminist writer Gail Scott comes Permanent Revolution, a collection of new essays gathered alongside a recreation of her groundbreaking text, Spaces Like Stairs. In conversation with other writers working in queer/feminist avant-garde trajectories, including l’écriture-au-féminin in Québec and continental New Narrative, these essays provide an evolutionary snapshot of Scott’s ongoing prose experiment that hinges the matter of writing to ongoing social upheaval. Scott herself points to the heart of this book, writing, “Where there is no emergency, there is likely no real experiment.”
With a Foreword by Zoe Whittall and an Afterword by Margaret Christakos.
GAIL SCOTT is the author of Spare Parts (1981), Heroine (1987; finalist for the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction; re-issued in 2019 with an introduction by Eileen Myles), Main Brides (1993; finalist for the Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction), My Paris (1999), Spare Parts Plus Two (2002), and The Obituary (2010; shortlisted for Le Grand Prix du livre de Montréal), and Permanent Revolution (2021; finalist for Le Grand Prix du livre de Montréal). Her essays are collected in Spaces Like Stairs (1989) and in La Théorie, un dimanche (1988) which was translated into English as Theory, A Sunday (2013). Scott is co-editor of the New Narrative anthology: Biting the Error: Writers Explore Narrative (2004; shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award for Nonfiction Anthologies). Her translation of Michael Delisle's Le désarroi du matelot was shortlisted for a 2001 Governor General's Literary Award. Scott lives in Montréal.
ZOE WHITTALL has previously published five bestselling novels and three volumes of poetry, including The Fake and The Spectacular, The Best Kind of People, Holding Still for as Long as Possible, and Bottle Rocket HeartsHer work has won a Lambda Literary Award, the Writers’ Trust Dayne Ogilvie Award, and been shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. She has worked as a TV writer on the Emmy-Award winning comedy show Schitt’s Creek and The Baroness Von Sketch Show for which she won a 2018 Canadian Screen Award. She was born in the Eastern Townships of Quebec and now lives in Prince Edward County, Ontario.
MARGARET CHRISTAKOS is a widely published award-winning poet, fiction author, critic, and creative writing instructor. Her work includes the afterword for the Le Grand Prix du livre de Montréal 2021 finalist, Permanent Revolutions, and the essay collection, Her Paraphernalia: On Motherlines, Sex, Blood, Loss & SelfiesHer work has won the ReLit Award for Poetry and the Bliss Carman Award, has been nominated for the Pat Lowther Award, and was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award. She was appointed Canada Council Writer in Residence at the University of Windsor in 2004–2005, served as Canada Council Writer in Residence at Western University in 2016–2017 and at the University of Alberta in 2017–2018, and as Barker Fairley Distinguished Visitor at University of Toronto (2018–2019).
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