The terminal illness and death of the author's father and a recent trip to Egypt led Lola Lemire Tostevin to explore what she perceives to be the essential relation between language and death. In the hieroglyphs and carvings of ancient Egyptian temples she experienced how the bleakness of death and the desert were transformed into something that continues to live.
Of the writing of this book Tostevin writes, ""The journal entries of Cartouches were not written in the usual traditional diary form in which a day's events are recorded. They were, like the poems, 'fashioned' as a process of writing through which the writer gives meaning to events that may (or may not) have happened. These events become hieroglyphs-iconic moments, if you will-framed within the pages of a book. They are small cartouches and amulets that help the writer define who she is.
Writing about the death of one's father or of close friends brings into sharp focus the essential relation between language and death as it was so beautifully expressed on the temple walls of Ancient Egypt. When one looks at the hieroglyphs through a contemporary eye, one sees - experiences - the spectacle of writing, the performance through which the bleakness of death and desert are transformed into something that continues to live, if only in the writer's mind... The journal entries of Cartouches were not written in the usual traditional diary form in which a day's events are recorded. They were, like the poems, "fashioned" as a process of writing through which the writer gives meaning to events that may (or may not) have happened. These events become hieroglyphs - iconic moments, if you will - framed within the pages of a book.
"Lola Lemire Tostevin is an incisive, intelligent, and sharply observant writer…"
— Quarry
"Love, nape-tingling work."
— Books in Canada
