The author Michael Winter discusses his new book Into the Blizzard: Walking the Fields of the Newfoundland Dead (Doubleday, 2014), and war and sacrifice, with Joseph Planta.

Into the Blizzard: Walking the Fields of the Newfoundland Dead by Michael Winter (Doubleday, 2014). Click to buy this book from Amazon.ca: Into the Blizzard

Text of introduction by Joseph Planta:

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

As we reflect on Remembrance Day about service and sacrifice, a mesmerising book is Michael Winter’s latest: Into the Blizzard: Walking the Fields of the Newfoundland Dead. It’s a book that’s part-history and part-travelogue, that brings the reader to the Newfoundland before and after the First World War, as well as overseas to Beaumont-Hamel, where on 01 July 1916, a great number of Newfoundlanders were killed during the Battle of the Somme. Mr. Winter, who joins me now, brings us to the past with his poignant and lyrical writing, while he writes beautifully and thoughtfully about what that past might mean for us today, the Newfoundland that might have been, and the identity that emerges from all of this. Michael Winter is the acclaimed author of novels that have been nominated for a number of prizes: The Architects Are Here, The Big Why, and The Death of Donna Whalen. He divides his time between Toronto and Newfoundland, but joins me in Vancouver today this book is published by Doubleday. Please welcome to the Planta: On the Line program, Michael Winter; Mr. Winter, good morning.

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