Christopher Ondaatje

Between The Rock and a Hard Place

Theatre of Fish: Travels through Newfoundland and Labrador

By

Hutchinson 368pp £16.99 order from our bookshop

The rugged triangular island of Newfoundland lies between the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of St Lawrence and consists mainly of a low, forested plateau rolling gently to the north-east; it has a miserably infertile interior, and most of its population (a little over 600,000) live along the inhospitably irregular coast, especially in the south-east. It was discovered by John Cabot in 1497 and eventually became an English fishing station; along with the sparsely populated Coast of Labrador (the region is now known as the province of Newfoundland and Labrador), it was made a dominion during the First World War, and in 1949 the area formed Canada’s most recently acquired province (one of ten).

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • The mystery of Jack the Ripper's identity has long been agonised over. But what do we know about his victims?… ,
    • A piece of Literary Review history from way back in 1983: John Haffenden talks to the great Iris Murdoch. ,
    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    • If you want ideas about what to read next, sign up to our free email newsletter, and get book reviews, archive mate… ,
    • 'The heroic male nude could not, I think, be used today to signify civic pride and glory', as Michelangelo’s 'David… ,
    • 'Munch’s later works show us a man liberated from the torments that gave rise to some of the best-known early works… ,
    Follow Us