The fishermen on Lesvos call her Kanella because of her cinnamon color. She's a scrawny, nervous stray — easily intimidated by the harbor cats and the other dogs that compete for handouts on the pier.One spring day a dinghy filled with weary, desperate strangers comes to shore. Other boats follow, laden with refugees who are homeless and hungry. Kanella knows what that is like, and she follows them as they are taken to a makeshift refugee camp in the parking lot of an abandoned nightclub. There she comes to trust a bearded man — an aid worker. She gradually settles into a contented routine, given shelter like the other refugees who line up for food and sleep on the ground for a few nights before being taken to a much bigger, permanent camp that the aid workers call Mordor.Kanella grows healthy and confident. She has a job now — to keep watch over the people in her camp.One day, a little boy arrives and does not leave like the others. He seems...

"To say Heighton is an immensely talented writer is true enough but insufficient ... As good a writer as Canada has ever produced."—National PostThe unforgettable last collection by the bestselling author of The Shadow BoxerA man recalls his father's advice on how to save a drowning person, but struggles when the time comes to use it. A wife's good deed leaves a couple vulnerable at the moment when they're most in need of security—the birth of their first child. Newly in love, a man preoccupied by accounts of freak accidents is befallen by one himself. In stories about love and fear, idealisms and illusions, failures of muscle and mind and all the ways we try to care for one another, Steven Heighton's Instructions for the Drowning is an indelible last collection by a writer working at the height of his powers.

"The longer you stare at the mountain, the more it seems a refuge above human borders and distinctions and this constant dialogue of violence. Up there, he'd hoped, he and Sophie could step away from trouble for a while."Lewis Book, a doctor with a history of embroiling himself in conflicts, and his daughter, Sophie, travel to Nepal to join a climbing expedition. One evening, as Sophie sits on the border between China and Nepal, watching the sun set over the Himalayas, she spots a group of Tibetan refugees fleeing from Chinese soldiers. When shooting starts, Dr. Book rushes toward the ensuing melee, ignoring the objections of Lawson, the expedition leader, who doesn't want to get involved and spoil his chance to be the first climber to summit Kyatruk. Lawson is further enraged when Amaris, a Chinese-Canadian filmmaker recording the expedition, joins Book with her camcorder in hand. When the surviving Tibetansare captured just short of the border, Lawson and Sophie look...

From internationally acclaimed author Steven Heighton comes a passionate novel of buried secrets, the repercussions of war and finding love among the ruinsElias Trifannis is desperate to belong somewhere. To make his dying ex-cop father happy, he joins the military - but in Afghanistan, by the time he realizes his last-minute bid for connection was a terrible mistake, it's too late and a tragedy has occurred. In the aftermath, exhausted by nightmares, Elias is sent to Cyprus to recover, where he attempts to find comfort in the arms of Eylul, a beautiful Turkish journalist. But the lovers' reprieve ends in a moment of shocking brutality that drives Elias into Varosha, once a popular Greek-Cypriot resort town, abandoned since the Turkish invasion of 1974.Hidden in the lush, overgrown ruins is a community of exiles and refugees living resourcefully but comfortably. Thanks to the cheerfully corrupt Colonel Kaya, who turns a blind eye, they live under the radar of...

ReviewPraise for Steven Heighton:"A superb writer." —Edmonton Journal "An experienced adventurer in literary form." —The New York Times Book Review"A wordsmith and sentence sculptor of the old school." —The Gazette "Heighton writes with elegance and a breathtaking audacity." —Winnipeg Free Press"A brilliant stylist unafraid of investigating the big questions of contemporary life." —The Vancouver SunReview“A collection as powerful as the much earlier linked stories of Flight Paths of the Emperor…. He has retained his ironic intelligence as well as a rugged quality that’s fascinating and hard to define…. A delight…. Genius…. Funny, scary, sad.... The Dead Are More Visible is a fine collection of fictions, well worth reading.” —The Globe and Mail“Short stories are the ideal format for Steven Heighton...these tiny, distilled gems pack a...punch.” —Readers Digest “Heighton is indisputably one of Canada’s most important literary talents.” —The Kingston Whig-Standard“Heighton lavishes attention on the way language helps frame the world.... The stories in the collection sit well together.” —Quill & Quire“It seems like just yesterday that Steven Heighton was beginning his career; now he’s one of the stalwarts of Canadian literature. He returns to what is perhaps his strongest form with The Dead Are More Visible.” —National Post