Editorial Reviews of Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas
Gloria Blizzard’s collection of essays is as captivating and lovingly written as any of her songs or poems. From identity and belonging to feminism and food, these personal essays present complexities, challenges and reflections that will appeal to a wide range of readers.
- Ms. Magazine

A collection of poetry and narrative essays on motion, memory and music. Gloria Blizzard examines the nuances of language, geography and culture from an international diasporic lens. 
- CBC Books - Nonfiction list

Gloria’s consummate craft elevates her essays about surviving in the liminal spaces of geography and culture to literary art. She effortlessly weaves elements of her life—its challenges and its gifts—into contemporary conversations about identity, feminism, the diaspora, art and belonging. It's a delight to read such a talented, astute and ground-breaking writer.
- Lorri Neilsen Glenn, author of The Old Man in Her Arms

Jumping from poignant childhood moments to reflections of her adult life, Blizzard’s narrative essays contort the linearity of time to explore how memories are continuously reshaped by time that has passed, time that is here, and time that has not yet arrived. Her play with memory making is also accompanied by reflections on how formal education, both in the Caribbean and in Canada, is rooted in colonialism. Not afraid to directly address racism and call out false allies, Blizzard also does not shy away from exploring the complex emotions, including tiredness, sadness, and anger, arising from a society that marginalizes Black women while making them objects of attention. Through exploring these dichotomies of visibility and invisibility, presence and absence, stillness and movement, Blizzard delivers a thought-provoking collection that will appeal to those interested in questioning cultural archives, national identity, and personal legacies.
- 49th Shelf - Booklist

Mesmerizing, lyrical and cadenced, Gloria Blizzard’s essays move like music, like dance. With clear-eyed prose and radiant language, Blizzard explores the intersection of art and science, Blackness and womanhood, place and displacement. This is an astonishingly assured debut from a vital new voice in Canadian literature - smart, insightful and necessary.
- Ayelet Tsabari, author of The Art of Leaving

Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and other dilemmas is a bepopian meditation on identity. Moving effortlessly between critical theory, biography and history, Blizzard brings to life the contradictions of Black Atlantic experience. Beautiful and tragic in turn Black Cake is an essential ingredient to understanding our plural world today.
- Edson Burton – author of Deacon Three BBC Radio full-cast dramas

I ravenously read, 'Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas' I read it like one beautiful delicious cultural meal of life. A life so colorfully experienced as much as it was and is lived. A life immediately recognizable, a life of unique richness.
- John Devenish, musician, writer, broadcaster - Jazz fm

Gloria Blizzard’s essays are beautifully attentive and questioning. Black Cake, Turtle Soup, and Other Dilemmas weaves a multiplicity of political histories and personal geographies into an expansive, generous narrative. A wonderful work.
- Kandace Siobhan Walker, poet – author of Kaleido and Cowboy


Media Coverage
“Canadian nonfiction to read in Spring 2024”

CBC Books – March 2024

 

“Mothers Day book recommendations”

River Street Writing – May 2024

 

“Book List - Editors’ picks, themed lists, genre favourites, and more!”

49th Shelf – June 2024

 

CBC Radio syndication – June 2024

New Brunswick, Edmonton, Sudbury/Thunder Bay, White Horse, St. John’s, Victoria, Calgary,

Kelowna, Winnipeg, Vancouver and Saskatoon

 

“Independently published Best Sellers list”

Hamilton Review of Books – July 2024

 

“July Reads for the Rest of Us”

Ms Magazine – July 2024

 

“54 works of Canadian nonfiction to read this fall”

CBC Books – August 2024