Following his highly acclaimed award-winning novel The Origin of Waves , Austin Clarke's new book, The Question , is a tour de force that steps boldly into the arena of male-female relationships, with all their power struggles and complexities. When a man and a woman meet on a summer day, they begin a conversation which sets them on a course that will change both of their lives. During the long afternoon and into the night, their words weave a web of intimacy, and the man finds himself drawn into recollections of his childhood on an island in the Caribbean, and into reflections on his life in Toronto, where by day he works in a downtown court, listening to the plight of would-be refugees, and by night visits his lover, Room, a gentle, quiet Filipino woman. But who is she, this woman he meets at a birthday party given by her friend? What is behind her dark secrets? What can anyone know about another – really? As their relationship hurtles forward, he finds himself part of a strange triangle of affections, until events escalate, leading to the novel's dramatic final scenes. Austin Clarke gathers the disparate strands of a man's life and transforms them into a taut and hypnotic narrative. Infused with melancholy, humour, and a disarming honesty, The Question is a brilliantly conceived novel about the experience of dislocation and disillusionment, in which the clash of cultures is juxtaposed with the realm of sexual politics. Austin Clarke is one of the most original and accomplished voices in Canadian literature. The Question is his most compelling novel to date.