Slow Build for Aubin's Rescue of Jerusalem

Sometimes, great books are slow to attract the audience they deserve. But it makes belated attention all the sweeter. That's the case with Henry Aubin’s ground breaking book The Rescue of Jerusalem: The Alliance between Hebrews and Africans in 701 B.C.

First published in 2002 in Canada by Doubleday and by Soho Press in the U.S. the book unravels the mystery of why the powerful Assyrian army failed to destroy Jerusalem in 701 B.C.

Aubin shows that credit belongs to a Kushite expeditionary force from Egypt, led by 21-year-old Prince Taharqa, son of the black pharaoh Piye.

Although it was published in French and Hungarian translations, won awards, and attracted the admiration of American author Walter Mosley, there were no major US reviews on publication.

Now six years later, things may be looking up. In January, it was optioned for film. In February, it was cited in the National Geographic’s cover story, “The Black Pharaohs.”

And now the African Studies Association has invited Aubin to speak about the book at a convention in Chicago in November.

The Association learned of The Rescue of Jerusalem in June after it selected his young adult novel Rise of the Golden Cobra as an Africana Award honor book.

Celine Dion Receives Nemat Memoir

In Milan in July, at a glittering event, Canada's ambassador to Italy, Alex Himmelfarb and his wife presented Celine Dion with a copy of Marina Nemat's moving memoir The Prisoner of Tehran. Dion was given the newly released French edition.

Nemat's powerful account of her imprisonment in Khomeini's Iran and her forced marriage to her prison guard is an international bestseller. In the past few months, the Toronto author has traveled to Paris and Greece, and twice to Italy for appearances on behalf of her book.

In Canada and the US, the paperback reprint has just been issued.

Morley Torgov’s
Murder in A-Major

When Sylvia McConnell of  Napoleon & Company and its RendezVous Crime list made an offer for Morley Torgov’s mystery Murder in A-Major, she hadn’t yet met Torgov. She knew from his lengthy credits that he was an award-winning author of five previous novels and that he celebrated his 80th birthday December 3, 2007. She delicately inquired if he had the stamina to promote the book.

We didn’t observe the same delicacy in reassuring her. “He practises law full time, he and his wife Anna Pearl have a hectic social life, and he reports that his doctor told him he has the prostate of a 20 year old,” Beverley Slopen wrote.

The launch party May 29, 2008 at the hip Gladstone Hotel in Toronto attracted more than 300  fans, fellow lawyers, old friends, and associates from the worlds of media and music. It was loud, packed, and wild.

Donna Morrissey’s
What They Wanted 

Penguin Canada is gearing up promotion for the launch this fall of Donna Morrissey’s fourth novel, What They Wanted. Donna’s previous books have been set in a tiny Newfoundland outport similar to her childhood home. “There were 12 families and we didn’t talk to half of them,” she says.

Her previous novels, Kit’s Law, Downhill Chance and Sylvanus Now were not autobiographical. In her new book, Donna relives through her characters the traumatic loss of her beloved younger brother on the oil rigs of Grand Prairie, Alberta.

Like her heroine Sylvie Now, Donna worked in the kitchen at the rig, one of thousands of Newfoundlanders who travelled west to find work.