The Death of Tony

A delightful and evocative memoir by Leacock Medal nominee Antanas Sileika.

The acclaimed novelist who wrote this book wasn't always Antanas. Growing up in the immigrant hub of Weston, Ontario-with a childhood of Lithuanian summer camp, folk dancing, and booze-soaked Christmases-Sileika was known to friends and teachers as Tony. It wasn't until he entered university and began to understand his deep attachment to his heritage that he shed the anglicized name and became Antanas Sileika, the writer who straddles two worlds.

In animated, entertaining prose, Sileika recounts his time as a young writer in Paris, the dramatic events surrounding Lithuanian independence and the fall of the Soviet Union, and his growing involvement in Lithuania's political and cultural spheres. Proud of his heritage but unafraid to explore its darker chapters, he touches in this book on the Holocaust and the gulag, as well as the new threats facing Eastern Europe today. Laced with humour and wry observations, The Death of Tony is a tribute to the immigrant experience, a primer for Canadian readers on the history and culture of an underrepresented nation, and above all a sensitive exploration of this author's bifurcated identity.