Longlisted for the 2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize

A sharply original debut collection, How To Get Along With Women showcases Elisabeth de Mariaffi’s keen eye and inventive voice. Infused with a close and present danger, these stories tighten the knot around power, identity, and sexuality, and draw the reader into the pivotal moments where-for better or for worse-we see ourselves for what we truly are.

“How to Get Along With Women is at once stunning and daring.”—Canada Arts Connect

"De Mariaffi’s writing is biting and captivating."—The Book Stylist

ELISABETH DE MARIAFFI’s debut book of short stories, How to Get Along with Women, was longlisted for the 2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her poetry and short fiction have been widely published in magazines across Canada. Her first novel, The Devil You Know, was named one of the Best Books of 2015 by the Globe and Mail and the National Post. The Globe and Mail also chose her most recent novel, Hysteria, as one of the Best Books of 2018. Both books were shortlisted for the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Elisabeth de Mariaffi lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland, with the poet George Murray and their four children.

Elisabeth de Mariaffi's profile page

• Long-listed, Scotiabank Giller Prize

“De Mariaffi is a writer adept at painting pictures from words and she approaches her characters with a firm sense of humour, understanding that all of us are slightly wacky and difficult.”—Toronto Star

“How to Get Along With Women is a finely written collection exploring the ways our identities, our most intimate relationships and our experiences can be shaped by the world we inhabit, a world mapped by dynamics of power.”—Rabble.ca

"De Mariaffi’s writing is biting and captivating."—The Book Stylist

“Centring on women fighting to come to terms with their own identity or trying to grasp the full force of their sexuality, de Mariaffi explores her subjects with a detail-oriented eye, deftly inserting the reader into key moments in her characters’ lives.”—Quill & Quire

“How to Get Along With Women is at once stunning and daring, a kaleidoscope of stories weaving the emotions and experiences of mostly female protagonists as they explore their relationships with themselves, their environments and others.”—Canada Arts Connect

“How to Get Along with Women is a strong collection, in part because the voices written into each story vary so widely.”—National Post

“Elisabeth de Mariaffi is urgently trapping the ten percent of emotions that hardly get mentioned by anyone else. She’s alive to what disturbs, and she’s dead to cliché.”—Michael Winter, author of The Death of Donna Whalen

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