What We All Long For

Dionne Brand

St. Martin's Griffin/Thomas Dunne Books

Download Image Dionne Brand What We All Long For
Buy it now

Available Formats

BookeBook

Dionne Brand powerfully delves into uncharted aspects of urban life, the bittersweetness of youth, and secrets families try to hide. Tuyen is an aspiring artist and the daughter of Vietnamese parents who’ve never recovered from losing one of their children while in the rush to flee Vietnam in the 1970s. She rejects her immigrant family’s hard-won lifestyle, and instead lives in a rundown apartment with friends—each of whom is grappling with their own familial complexities and heartache. 

In turns thrilling and heartbreaking, Tuyen’s lost brother—who has since become a criminal in the Thai underworld—journeys to Toronto to find his long-lost family. As Quy’s arrival nears, tensions build, friendships are tested, and an unexpected encounter will forever alter the lives of Tuyen and her friends.

Gripping at times, heartrending at others, What We All Long For is an ode to a generation of longing and identity, and to the rhythms and pulses of a city and its burgeoning, questioning youth. 

Connect with the Author

Dionne Brand

Sign Up for
Author Updates

Reviews

Praise for What We All Long For

“Superb . . . Brand’s best novel yet.”—National Post

“Brand . . . translates our desires and experiences into a language, an art that allows [her] to voice that which we live, but could not utter or bring to voice until she did so for us.”
—The Globe and Mail

“Brand’s most accomplished novel yet. . . . both credible and incredible.” —Quill & Quire

"Brand is quite subtle and nuanced in her analysis of her characters." --Toronto Star
 
"...a wonderfully layered and polyphonic novel...[Brand's] writing enfolds a generosity or openness that enables it to transcend its 'artifice.' These qualities are on display in abundance in this moving novel of how families, histories and geographies shape the nature of dreams." --Vue Weekly (Edmonton)
 
"What We All Long For is a watershed novel." --National Post
 
"Brand's text is gifted with unavoidable questions of what partnership means." --Herizons

Reviews from Goodreads

Placeholder
Angel  rated it  
Apr 24, 2011
What We All Long For by Dionne Brand is set in inner-city Toronto and evokes a strong sense of place with its lush descriptions of the mood of the city during winter, spring, and summer and the colorful descriptions of immigrant communities within the city. The city, like the four characters, Tuyen, ...more
Placeholder
Ed  rated it  
Aug 2, 2009
She encaptures the Toronto of my everyday in her prose. I made a personal connection to her analysis of immigrant experience through all her characters. ...more
Placeholder
Lesliemae  rated it  
Jul 24, 2008
This book made me feel a part of the entity Toronto. Torontonians do not just live in the city they live with it. Brand captures that sense of Toronto streets, bars, culture, music, the life of beauty and struggle.

Inscription: (July.08)
I've lived in Toronto since 2003. The SARS ou ...more
See all Reviews
Back

About the Author

Dionne Brand

Dionne Brand won the Governor General’s Award for poetry and the Trillium Award in 1997 for Land to Light On. In 2003 she won the Pat Lowther Award for poetry for her book thirsty. Her novels include In Another Place, Not Here and At the Full and Change of the Moon. She lives in Toronto.

Dionne Brand

Back

Buy the Book

Available Formats and Book Details

What We All Long For
Dionne Brand

Trade Paperback

Trade Paperback
St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Griffin/Thomas Dunne Books
November 2008
Trade Paperback
ISBN: 9780312377717
ISBN10: 0312377711
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 336 pages
$17.99
Buy

e-Book Agency

Learn more about this edition
e-Book Agency
St. Martin's Press
St. Martin's Griffin/Thomas Dunne Books
November 2008
e-Book Agency
ISBN: 9781429986038
ISBN10: 1429986034
5 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches, 336 pages
$9.99
Books for Courses Available
Back

From The Publisher

St. Martin's Griffin

Latest on Facebook

Latest on Twitter

Back

{ About }

{ Services }

{ Store }

{ Publishers }

Education

Children's

© 2011 Macmillan