A Simple Carpenter
- Author Name: Dave Margoshes
- Publisher: Radiant Press
- Publication Date: 2024
- ISBN: 9781998926091
- Author Website: http://www.radiantpress.ca
About the Book
A carpenter is shipwrecked on a small Mediterranean island—he’s completely lost his memory but has acquired the ability to speak, write and understand all languages. After his rescue, he spends time recuperating with a group of nuns who, observing him perform what appear to be small miracles, take him to be the second coming of Jesus Christ. Later, in Beirut, he’s hired as a translator for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon, and is recruited as a messenger for Black September, a Palestinian terrorist group. Disillusioned by this experience, he treks on foot across the Galilean hills to the Sea of Galilee, encountering a series of strange communities evoking biblical times along the way. Part biblical fable, part magic realism, part thriller, Carpenter is set in the Middle Eastern “Holy Land” in the early ‘80s, against the backdrop of the civil war in neighboring Lebanon.
About the Author
Dave Margoshes is a poet and fiction writer. Most of his adult life has been spent in western Canada, for 35 years, in Saskatchewan. He began his writing life as a journalist, working as a reporter and editor on a number of daily newspapers in the U.S. and Canada, and has taught journalism and creative writing. He has published twenty books of fiction, nonfiction and poetry. His work has appeared widely in literary magazines and anthologies, in Canada and beyond,, including six times in the Best Canadian Stories volumes; he’s been nominated for the Journey Prize several times and was a finalist in 2009. His Bix’s Trumpet and Other Stories won two prizes at the 2007 Saskatchewan Book Awards, including Book of the Year. His collection of linked short stories A Book of Great Worth, was named one of Amazon.ca’s Top Hundred Books of 2012. Other prizes include the City of Regina Writing Award, twice; the Stephen Leacock Prize for Poetry in 1996 and the John V. Hicks Award for fiction in 2001. In 2022 he was the recipient of the Lieutenant Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Dave lives on an acreage near Saskatoon.