Jocelyn Parr is a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

writer,"Uncertain Weights and Measures". ''

The Walrus ''The Walrus'' is an independent, non-profit Canadian media organization. It is multi-platform and produces an 8-issue-per-year magazine and online editorial content that includes current affairs, fiction, poetry, and podcasts, a national s ...

'', October 2017. whose debut novel ''Uncertain Weights and Measures'' was a shortlisted finalist for the

Governor General's Award for English-language fiction The Governor General's Award for English-language fiction is a Canadian literary award that annually recognizes one Canadian writer for a fiction book written in English.2017 Governor General's Awards The shortlisted nominees for the 2017 Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit were announced on October 4, 2017,

. It was also shortlisted for the 2018 Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, longlisted for the 2019 International Dublin Literary Award, and won the QWF's 2017 Concordia University First Book Prize. ''Uncertain Weights and Measures'' began as a Masters thesis in the Creative Writing Program at Concordia University. Set in post-revolutionary Moscow, the novel traces the life of a young research scientist working at a brain institute that housed Lenin's brain, and that of the man she loves, Sasha, whose artistic ambitions run afoul of the state-sanctioned aesthetics. A writer for ''The Walrus'' suggests the book could "very well be read as a cautionary allegory of our 'brave and visionary time.'" James Gifford, writing for ''Canadian Literature'', writes that the "sustained tension between plot and thought is the novel's greatest success. The reader is pressed to ask challenging questions of history, science, and private life without ever shifting out of the gripping narrative. ''Uncertain Weights and Measures'' is clearly a novel of ideas, but it never reads like a treatise or thought experiment, though in a sense it is. Parr was nominated for the Governor General's Award, and her first book declares the opening of an exciting career." Born in New Zealand, she grew up on the West Coast of Canada and is now a history professor at

Dawson College Dawson College (French: ''Collège Dawson)'' is an English-language public general and vocational college in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The college is situated near the heart of Downtown Montreal in a former nunnery on approximately 12 acre ...

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

. Her writing has previously appeared in literary magazines such as ''

Brick A brick is a type of block used to build walls, pavements and other elements in masonry construction. Properly, the term ''brick'' denotes a block composed of dried clay, but is now also used informally to denote other chemically cured cons ...

'', ''

Grain A grain is a small, hard, dry fruit (caryopsis) – with or without an attached hull layer – harvested for human or animal consumption. A grain crop is a grain-producing plant. The two main types of commercial grain crops are cereals and legum ...

'' and ''Matrix''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Parr, Jocelyn Living people 21st-century Canadian novelists 21st-century Canadian short story writers Canadian women novelists Canadian women short story writers Writers from Montreal Academic staff of Dawson College 21st-century Canadian women writers Year of birth missing (living people)