Frances Itani

A whisper in your ear: Canadian author Itani’s debut novel, Deafening, is a true joy, a moving and observant story of love, sorrow, and survival during the days of World War I. It’s made up of three entwining stories: a girl named Grania (inspired by Itani’s grandmother) learning how to cope with profound deafness in a world designed for the hearing; how she falls in love with a hearing man named Jim; and Jim’s hellish experiences in the bloody cacophony of the European trenches. Deafening is clearly a labor of love-Itani spent six years researching deaf schools and the Great War, and even became fluent in sign language. She’s a perceptive, sensitive prose stylist who’s gone the extra mile and more to really live in her characters’ skin and breathe the air of their time. That care comes through on every page.
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