Blood: The Stuff of Life

Front Cover
House of Anansi Press, 2013 - History - 372 pages
In Blood, bestselling author Lawrence Hill offers a provocative examination of the scientific and social history of blood, and on the ways that it unites and divides us today.

Blood runs red through every person’s arteries, and fulfills the same functions in every human being. However, as much as the study and use of blood has helped advance our understanding of human biology, its cultural and social representations have divided us perennially. Blood pulses through religions, literature, and the visual arts, and every time it pools or spills, we learn a little more about what brings human beings together and what divides them.

This book is a fascinating historical and contemporary interpretation of blood, as a bold and enduring determinant of identity, race, culture, citizenship, belonging, privilege, deprivation, athletic superiority, and nationhood.

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About the author (2013)

Lawrence Hill was born in 1957 in Newmarket, Ontario. He earned a B.A. in economics from Laval University in Quebec City and later an M. A. in writing from Johns Hopkins University. Hill taught undergraduate fiction writing while completing his M.A. at Johns Hopkins, and since graduating has taught creative writing in numerous adult education programs. He has worked as a full-time newspaper reporter for The Globe and Mail and The Winnipeg Free Press. He has authored several books. Hill's nonfiction books include Trials and Triumphs: The Story of African-Canadians, Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada, The Deserter's Tale: The Story of An Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away from the War in Iraq, and Dear Sir, I Intend to Burn Your Book: An Anatomy of a Book Burning. Hill's fictional works include Some Great Thing, Any Known Blood,The Book of Negroes, and The Illegal. The Book of Negroes won several awards including the Rogers Writers Trust Fiction Prize.

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