Bear Paperback by Marian Engel; Introduction by Claire Cameron

Product Details

• Publisher: McClelland & Stewart (2025-07-15)
• Language: English
• Paperback: 128 pages
• ISBN-13: 9780771023552
• Item Weight: 113.4 grams
• Dimensions: 8.23 x 5.5 x 0.29 cm

Part of the inaugural Kanata Classics list, with a new introduction by Claire Cameron, Bear is one of the most daring and provocative books in the history of Canadian literature.

Lou is a lonely librarian who spends her days in the dusty archives of the Historical Institute. When an unusual field assignment comes her way, she jumps at the chance to travel to a remote island in northern Ontario, where she will spend the summer cataloguing a library that belonged to an eccentric nineteenth-century colonel. Eager to investigate the estate’s curious history, she is shocked to discover that the island has one other inhabitant: a bear. Lou’s imagination is soon overtaken by the island’s past occupants, whose deep fascination with bears gradually becomes her own. Irresistibly, Lou is led along a path of emotional and sexual self-awakening, as she explores the limits of her own animal nature. What she discovers will change her life forever.

About the Author

MARIAN ENGEL was born in Toronto, Ontario, in 1933. Her many novels and short stories explore the daily lives of her contemporaries, frequently reflecting upon the human condition from the perspective of women. Her most famous novel, Bear, won the Governor General's Award for Fiction in 1976. Engel was a founding member of the Writers' Union of Canada and served as its first chairman in 1973-74. Marian Engel died in 1985.