As relevant and engaging today as when they were written, Henry Kreisel’s stories make readers hold their breath with anticipation until the finely crafted final sentence. The Almost Meeting and other stories is part of NeWest’s Landmark Editions Series. This masterful collection of Kreisel’s short fiction was written between 1954 and 1980. These stories are intelligent, literary reflections on what it is to be a citizen of a Canada and of the world.

Henry Kreisels major contribution to Canadian Literature has been to bridge two worldsthe European and the Canadian. Born in Austria in 1922, he fled the Anschluss in 1938, going to England where he was then sent to Canada as an enemy alien and interned in 1940. He earned his MA in English in 1947 from the University of Toronto and in 1954 he earned a PhD from the University of London. In 1961, as head of the English department at the University of Alberta, he introduced the first course in Canadian literature. Among other awards, Kreisel received the 1983 J.I. Segal Foundation Award for Literature in English for The Almost Meeting. Henry Kreisel died in 1991 leaving behind one son.

Henry Kreisel's profile page