Blog

Amanda Hale

May 30, 2019

Amanda Hale is an author, an educator and a visual artist. Born in the United Kingdom, she emigrated to Canada in 1968 and obtained a Master of Arts in Montreal. She has written for the theater and was a founding member of the theater group Company of Sirens, of the Red Tree Visual Arts group and the Broadside collective in Toronto. Her regular visits to Cuba have led to collaborations with several artists groups from the island, from painting murals, to creating dance performances and installations such as one shown in Casa Guayasamín in 2006.

Her first novel, Sounding the Blood (2001), was set in 1911 in a whaling town, and has been included in the curriculum of Canadian, American and European universities, having been translated into Czech. Her second novel, The Reddening Path (2007), was translated into Spanish by Verdecielo Ediciones with the title El sendero encarnado; and her third novel, My Sweet Curiosity (2010), was nominated for the Relit Prize. Amanda Hale’s poetry and short stories have been published in numerous Canadian and American journals. She has been influenced by Cuban everyday-life and her recent work has been set in the village of Baracoa; her short-story collections Embrace of the Alligator (2011) and Angela of the Stones (2018) particularly stand out.

She will publish her fourth novel, titled Mad Hatter, in late 2019, which will take an autobiographical turn, concentrating on her British roots and recreating a family story set in post-Second World War England. Also in the same year, the opera Pomegranate will make its debut: its original libretto is based on her book of poems of the same title, set in ancient Pompeii. Amanda Hale resides between Hornsby Island (Vancouver), Toronto and Cuba.