Exile – By Ann Ireland

Ireland has written one of the year's best novels, a witty satire on cross-cultural expectations, the distances between people, and the frailty of good intentions.

Quentin Mills-Fenn
Uptown Magazine
December 5, 2002

Ireland's prose is intelligent, witty and subversive.

National Post
October 22, 2002

"This is a wise, funny, sad, and compassionate book. Carlos's chagrin and pain are palpable, but Ireland holds out hope that as a clever man with a talent, he may transcend his shallow past and desperate present."

Maureen Garvie
Quill & Quire
November 1, 2002

In the hands of a lesser writer, the broad strokes might simply have betrayed a lack of craft. But here, this deficit of details read more like a clever stylistic device used by a writer absolutely in charge of her tools. And there's no mistaking Ireland's talent.

Skidmore
The Gazette
November 9, 2002

This is a fable that feels very real.

Alex Bozikovic
Eye Weekly
October 17, 2002

This book will touch a nerve in the writing community. Not only does it reveal some of the motives of First World political networks, but it also examines cultural correctness and the universality of real freedom. Exile is not only a good read, it's a good-for-you read, particularly those given to benevolent acts of mercy.

Margaret Macpherson
The Edmonton Journal
November 10, 2002

Exile is social commentary at its subtle and witty best.

Doretta Lau
The Vancouver Sun
October 26, 2002

Ireland's stint as president of PEN Canada undoubtedly opened her eyes to the tension between the artistic and political lives of writers around the world and the desire of Canadian cultural community to help (but only according to our rather bland and flat-footed rules). She paints these two solitudes with great wit and cunning observation.

Browyn Drainie
Amazon.ca

Exile is a tour de force. I haven't been so amused and appaled by a fictional character since reading Vladimir Nabokov's Pnin.

Susan Evans Shaw
The Hamilton Spectator
December 21, 2002

Exile is a brilliant tour de force, a refreshing antidote to the flag-waving fictions of multiculturalism.

University of Toronto Quarterly
January 1, 2003

Her characters are delightfully stereotypical, and she playfully puts people's prejudices and assumptions on display. As past president of PEN Canada, Ireland has cleverly and cheekily turned the work of that organization into folly, earning her a deserved nomination for a Governor General's Award for fiction.

Danyael Halprin
The Calgary Herald
November 30, 2002

It is a reflection of the strength of a novel.

Ryan Bigge
The Toronto Star
November 17, 2002

Ireland's prose creates a vivid character in the flawed figure of Carlosand Ireland has deep insight into the lives of exiles.

Now Magazine
November 28, 2002