000			01773nam a22002417a 4500
003			OSt
005			20241015155215.0
008			240927s2008 onca 000 1 eng d
020			_a9780002008945
040			_cQCPL _erda
082			_a823
100	1		_aMaclear, Kyo _eauthor
245	1	4	_a The letter opener _c/ Kyo Maclear
250			_aHarperPerennial edition
264		1	_aToronto : _bHarper Perennial, _c2008
300			_a312, 35 pages : _billustrations
336			_2rdacontent _atext
337			_2rdamedia _aunmediated
338			_2rdacarrier _avolume
520			_aIt is 1989 and Naiko is working in the Undeliverable Mail Office, a cavernous space that resembles a giant, congested pawnshop. Immersed in things lost and missing, she searches for clues to match undeliverable mail with addresses, a job that allows her to achieve a semblance of order in a disorderly world. It is a shock, then, when Naiko's co-worker Andrei, a nenigmatic Romanian refugee who has become the unlikely object of Naiko's fascination, suddenly vanishes. As the novel reveals itself in exquisitely wrought layers that drift through time from the Second World War to the fall of communism, Andrei's story of his past life in communist Romania becomes an opaque reflection of Naiko's own existence, and objects--from the pens hoarded by Naiko's mother in her retirement home to the personal effects of Jewish women that Andrei's grandmother sorts through at Birkenau--become touchstones for memories and meaning, loss and love. A luminous debut novel from a rising talent of the new generation of Canadian writers, The Letter Opener is a compelling work of literary fiction that glows with truth.
650			_aJapanese Canadian women _yCanada _vFiction
942			_2ddc _cBOOK
999			_c24238 _d24237