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Claudia Cornwall

5 December 2011 | Email This Post Email This Post | Print This Post Print This Post

The award winning author Claudia Cornwall discusses her new book At the World’s Edge: Curt Lang’s Vancouver, 1937-1998 (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2011), with Joseph Planta.


At the World’s Edge: Curt Lang’s Vancouver, 1937-1998 by Claudia Cornwall. (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2011)

Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: At the World’s Edge


Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

I am Planta: On the Line, in Vancouver at TheCommentary.ca.

Seeing that I have authors on this program frequently, and have a particular fondness for featuring books on local Vancouver and British Columbia figures, one invariably follows the trades like the indispensable BC Bookworld and Quill and Quire. I read about my next guest’s book now sometime ago. Claudia Cornwall has written a new book, At the World’s Edge: Curt Lang’s Vancouver, 1937-1998. I didn’t know who Curt Lang was, but the black and white shot of Vancouver in neon intrigued me. The Gary Busey-looking guy on the cover, with a cigarette in his hand was apparently Curt Lang. I’ve been reading Claudia’s book, and it’s just a fascinating read about Lang, who is a fascinating and remarkable figure on his own. He was a poet, an artist, as well as a photographer, he fished, he did work in software. The book captures a Vancouver from a bygone era, and it also shows how we’ve evolved to quote another book, from milltown to metropolis. We’ll ask Ms. Cornwall about Curt Lang, who he was, what he did, how she knew him, and more. The book is published by Mother Tongue Publishing. Claudia Cornwall is a freelance writer, who’s won many prizes including the Hubert Evans Non Fiction Prize in 1996 for her book Letter from Vienna: A Daughter Uncovers Her Family’s Jewish Past. Her own website is at www.claudiacornwall.com. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, in North Vancouver, Claudia Cornwall; Good morning, Ms. Cornwall.