Trillium Book Award and City of Toronto Book Award finalist; Edmund White Debut Fiction Award finalist; A Globe 100, National Post and Quill and Quire Best Book of the Year; Longlisted for Canada Reads
Scarborough is a low-income, culturally diverse neighbourhood east of Toronto, the fourth largest city in North America; like many inner-city communities, it suffers under the weight of poverty, drugs, crime, and urban blight. Scarborough the novel employs a multitude of voices to tell the story of a tight-knit neighbourhood under fire: among them, Victor, a black artist harassed by the police; Winsum, a West Indian restaurant owner struggling to keep it together; and Hina, a Muslim school worker who witnesses first-hand the impact of poverty on education.
And then there are the three kids who work to rise above a system that consistently fails them: Bing, a gay Filipino boy who lives under the shadow of his father''s mental illness; Sylvie, Bing''s best friend, a Native girl whose family struggles to find a permanent home to live in; and Laura, whose history of neglect by her mother is destined to repeat itself with her father.
Scarborough offers a raw yet empathetic glimpse into a troubled community that locates its dignity in unexpected places: a neighbourhood that refuses to be undone.
Catherine Hernandez is the author of the novel Scarborough, which won the 2015 Jim Wong-Chu Award; was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award, Toronto Book Award, the Evergreen Forest of Reading Award, and Edmund White Award for Debut Fiction; and was longlisted for Canada Reads 2018. It made the "Best of 2017" list from The Globe and Mail, National Post, Quill and Quire, and CBC Books. Her plays The Femme Playlist / I Cannot Lie to the Stars That Made Me, Singkil, and Kilt Pins were published by Playwrights Canada Press, and her children''s book M is for Mustache: A Pride ABC Book was published by Flamingo Rampant. She is the Artistic Director of b current. Catherine lives in Scarborough, Ontario.
