The Gift of Women

George McWhirter grounds his delightful characters in the real, while his sharp wit and creative scenarios border on the fantastical: a woman adopts a dolphin-man; an Irish madam runs a railroad bordello in the desert; a devoted husband drives his childless, belly-dancing wife to Greek tavernas with the ambition to quicken their lagging fertility; a Kurdish barber has a cure for hair loss, but not the loss of his wife and family in Iraq; a Mexican campesino swears his machete-severed ear is a sea shell tuned to the Pacific Ocean. The Gift of Women is about religion and sexuality, the surreal and the magical, a tale-telling of earthy and remarkable women.

George McWhirter was born and raised in Belfast, Northern Ireland. He has lived and worked in England, Germany, Spain and Mexico. He is the author of ten books of poetry, eight books of short and long fiction, and four books of translation. Literary recognitions include the Commonwealth Poetry Prize (shared with Chinua Achebe), the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and the F.R. Scott Translation Prize. He served as the inaugural Poet Laureate of Vancouver.