Description
Alan Blum's concerns are dramatized in the surreal narrative of
his novel Somebody Nobody Anybody: When the Cows Come
Home. He inverts the genre of magical realism that injects fiction
and fantasy into a realistic tale as a way of showing how life needs
magic, by showing alternatively that magic needs a dose of the Real
to deal with life. A beleaguered professor decides to study hatred by
doing research on the Anti-Hate unit of the Toronto Police Force.
After becoming entangled in the clichés governing public opinion
about what is inoffensive rather than meaningful the professor is
himself accused and tried for a hate crime.
About the author
Noted sociologist Alan Blum's studies are sensitive to the interplay of words, meanings, and thought, and all their dimensions in human inquiry. Through events and workshops in London, New York, Montreal, Italy, and Greece, Blum has sought to create communities of interest oriented to collaborative research focusing on this question. He lives in Toronto.
