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How
is it that Winnipeg inspires such surreal portraits of itself? Is it the
extreme cold, the sense of isolation in a vast sea of prairie, the peculiar
First Nations/exiled eastern European multicultural mix? Winnipeg From
the Fringes joins a prestigious list of eccentric visionary portraits
of the magical and troubled city, along with Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg,
Tomson Highway’s Kiss of the Fur Queen, Adele Wiseman’s Crackpot
and James Reaney’s A Message to Winnipeg. Discovering French philosopher
Michel Foucault and Kafka’s Gregor Samsa and Leonard Cohen’s
F. sharing a ward in the General Hospital is not surprising here. Nor
is finding 19th century Danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard’s “unscientific
postscript” protesting postmodern amnesic excess, in favour of community,
and memory, and “connection.” Ron Drewniak’s frost and
sun bitten photographs add another dimension of bereftness and solidarity
to the mix. Wonderful.
Di Brandt
Historian and poet
Walter Hildebrant was born in Brooks, Alberta and lived in Winnipeg from
1979 to 1992. He now lives in Edmonton. He has worked as an historian
for Parks Canada and as a consultant to the Treaty 7 Tribal Council, the
Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations and the Banff Bow Valley Task
Force. His long poem Sightings was nominated for the 1992 McNally-Robinson
Book of the Year for Manitoba. His book Where the Land Gets Broken
won the Stephen G. Stephensson Award for Poetry in 2005. He is presently
the Director of the Athabasca University Press. This is his sixth book
of poetry.
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