Other Worlds

Stories

De: Andre Alexis

Narrado por: Andre Alexis, Yanna Mcintosh

The award-winning author of Fifteen Dogs conjures up worlds–real, invented, uncanny–in this ingenious, electrifying collection.

A Trinidadian Obeah man finds himself reborn, a hundred years after his death, in the body of a Canadian child. A writer takes up a seasonal job as the caretaker of a set of mysterious large sacks hanging from the rafters of the houses in a small town. A woman starts a relationship with the famous artist who painted portraits of her mother. The contents of a sealed envelope upend a woman’s understanding about a tragic crime she committed at the age of six.

In this dazzling collection of stories, André Alexis draws fresh connections between worlds: the ones we occupy, the ones we imagine, and the ones that preceded our own. He introduces us to characters during moments of profound puzzlement, and transports us from 19th century Trinidad and Tobago to small-town Ontario, from Amherst, Massachusetts to contemporary Toronto.

These captivating stories reveal flashes of reckoning, defeat, despair, alienation, and understanding, all the while playfully using a multitude of literary genres, including gothic horror and isekai, and referencing works from greats like Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Yasunari Kawabata, Witold Gombrowicz, and Tomasso Landolfi.

Masterfully crafted, blending poignant philosophical inquiry and wry humour tinged with the absurd, here are worlds refracted and reflected back to us with pristine clarity and stunning emotional resonance as only André Alexis can.

©2025 Andre Alexis (P)2025 McClelland & Stewart

Reseñas de la Crítica

★ “Windham-Campbell winner Alexis (Fifteen Dogs) dazzles with these stark and enchanting stories, many of which feature Trinidadian immigrants in small-town Ontario. Taken as a whole, the collection offers striking connections and layers of meaning. This deserves to be the author’s U.S. breakout.”—Publishers Weekly (Starred Review)

“Pure storytelling magic. André Alexis is alchemically, necromantically, spell-castingly talented, and yet he never uses his powers for ill: in all his playfulness, there is never any trace of gamesmanship. He's a writer who makes the world feel so much bigger than it really is—even bigger than he himself has imagined it—by always allowing for the possibility of transformation. His stories fuse perception and discovery, exploring the many forms of secrets and inheritance, and the many ways knowledge can pass between the living and the dead. In Other Worlds, impossible things are treated with so much gentleness and respect that they become possible; we are reminded that we are, in every sense, conceived.”—Eleanor Catton, Booker Prize winner, author of Birnam Wood