
Cereus Blooms at Night
Penguin Modern Classics Edition
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $15.30
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Shaquille James-Hosten
-
By:
-
Shani Mootoo
About this listen
Finalist for the Giller Prize
Finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize
Bold and lyrical, sensual and highly charged, Cereus Blooms at Night is the beautifully written, sensational first novel by Shani Mootoo, one of Canada’s most exciting literary voices.
At the core of this haunting multigenerational novel are the shifting faces of Mala - adventurer and protector, recluse, and madwoman. Told by the engaging voice of Tyler, Mala’s vivacious male caretaker at the Paradise Alms House, Cereus Blooms at Night is layered with unforgettable scenes of a world where love and treachery collide.
©2009 Shani Mootoo (P)2022 McClelland & StewartListeners also enjoyed...
-
Nervous Conditions
- By: Tsitsi Dangarembga
- Narrated by: Chipo Chung
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two decades before Zimbabwe would win independence and ended white minority rule, 13-year-old Tambudzai Sigauke embarks on her education. On her shoulders rest the economic hopes of her parents, siblings and extended family, and within her burns the desire for independence. A timeless coming-of-age tale and a powerful exploration of cultural imperialism, Nervous Conditions charts Tambu's journey to personhood in a nation that is also emerging.
-
-
Narrator
- By Anathi on 09-25-22
-
Frankenstein in Baghdad
- A Novel
- By: Ahmed Saadawi
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the rubble-strewn streets of US-occupied Baghdad, Hadi - a scavenger and an oddball fixture at a local café - collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed.
-
-
I was fascinated the entire time
- By Tinkerbuff on 09-20-19
By: Ahmed Saadawi
-
Once There Were Wolves
- A Novel
- By: Charlotte McConaghy
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inti Flynn arrives in Scotland with her twin sister, Aggie, to lead a team of biologists tasked with reintroducing fourteen gray wolves into the remote Highlands. She hopes to heal not only the dying landscape, but Aggie, too, unmade by the terrible secrets that drove the sisters out of Alaska. Inti is not the woman she once was, either, changed by the harm she’s witnessed—inflicted by humans on both the wild and each other. Yet as the wolves surprise everyone by thriving, Inti begins to let her guard down, even opening herself up to the possibility of love.
-
-
Takes a dive into dark
- By Linda Ottey on 08-10-21
-
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
- A Novel
- By: Ocean Vuong
- Narrated by: Ocean Vuong
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late 20s, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born - a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam - and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation.
-
-
Beautifully written, but painful.
- By NB on 06-10-19
By: Ocean Vuong
-
Hungry Ghosts
- A Novel
- By: Kevin Jared Hosein
- Narrated by: Don Warrington
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Trinidad in the 1940s, nearing the end of American occupation and British colonialism. On a hill overlooking Bell Village sits the Changoor farm, where Dalton and Marlee Changoor live in luxury unrecognizable to those who reside in the farm’s shadow. Down below is the Barrack, a ramshackle building of wood and tin, divided into rooms occupied by whole families. Among these families are the Saroops—Hans, Shweta, and their son, Krishna, all three born of the barracks.
-
-
Gave up
- By Kirk A Mann on 08-29-23
-
Jonny Appleseed
- A Novel
- By: Joshua Whitehead
- Narrated by: Joshua Whitehead
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A tour-de-force debut novel about a Two-Spirit Indigiqueer young man and proud NDN glitter princess who must reckon with his past when he returns home to his reserve. “You're gonna need a rock and a whole lotta medicine” is a mantra that Jonny Appleseed, a young Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer, repeats to himself in this vivid and utterly compelling debut novel by poet Joshua Whitehead.
-
-
Open Door
- By doug jarvie on 05-08-21
By: Joshua Whitehead
-
Nervous Conditions
- By: Tsitsi Dangarembga
- Narrated by: Chipo Chung
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Two decades before Zimbabwe would win independence and ended white minority rule, 13-year-old Tambudzai Sigauke embarks on her education. On her shoulders rest the economic hopes of her parents, siblings and extended family, and within her burns the desire for independence. A timeless coming-of-age tale and a powerful exploration of cultural imperialism, Nervous Conditions charts Tambu's journey to personhood in a nation that is also emerging.
-
-
Narrator
- By Anathi on 09-25-22
-
Frankenstein in Baghdad
- A Novel
- By: Ahmed Saadawi
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini, Kaleo Griffith
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the rubble-strewn streets of US-occupied Baghdad, Hadi - a scavenger and an oddball fixture at a local café - collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed.
-
-
I was fascinated the entire time
- By Tinkerbuff on 09-20-19
By: Ahmed Saadawi
-
Once There Were Wolves
- A Novel
- By: Charlotte McConaghy
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Inti Flynn arrives in Scotland with her twin sister, Aggie, to lead a team of biologists tasked with reintroducing fourteen gray wolves into the remote Highlands. She hopes to heal not only the dying landscape, but Aggie, too, unmade by the terrible secrets that drove the sisters out of Alaska. Inti is not the woman she once was, either, changed by the harm she’s witnessed—inflicted by humans on both the wild and each other. Yet as the wolves surprise everyone by thriving, Inti begins to let her guard down, even opening herself up to the possibility of love.
-
-
Takes a dive into dark
- By Linda Ottey on 08-10-21
-
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous
- A Novel
- By: Ocean Vuong
- Narrated by: Ocean Vuong
- Length: 7 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Poet Ocean Vuong’s debut novel is a shattering portrait of a family, a first love, and the redemptive power of storytelling. On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a letter from a son to a mother who cannot read. Written when the speaker, Little Dog, is in his late 20s, the letter unearths a family’s history that began before he was born - a history whose epicenter is rooted in Vietnam - and serves as a doorway into parts of his life his mother has never known, all of it leading to an unforgettable revelation.
-
-
Beautifully written, but painful.
- By NB on 06-10-19
By: Ocean Vuong
-
Hungry Ghosts
- A Novel
- By: Kevin Jared Hosein
- Narrated by: Don Warrington
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Trinidad in the 1940s, nearing the end of American occupation and British colonialism. On a hill overlooking Bell Village sits the Changoor farm, where Dalton and Marlee Changoor live in luxury unrecognizable to those who reside in the farm’s shadow. Down below is the Barrack, a ramshackle building of wood and tin, divided into rooms occupied by whole families. Among these families are the Saroops—Hans, Shweta, and their son, Krishna, all three born of the barracks.
-
-
Gave up
- By Kirk A Mann on 08-29-23
-
Jonny Appleseed
- A Novel
- By: Joshua Whitehead
- Narrated by: Joshua Whitehead
- Length: 5 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A tour-de-force debut novel about a Two-Spirit Indigiqueer young man and proud NDN glitter princess who must reckon with his past when he returns home to his reserve. “You're gonna need a rock and a whole lotta medicine” is a mantra that Jonny Appleseed, a young Two-Spirit/Indigiqueer, repeats to himself in this vivid and utterly compelling debut novel by poet Joshua Whitehead.
-
-
Open Door
- By doug jarvie on 05-08-21
By: Joshua Whitehead
-
Their Eyes Were Watching God
- By: Zora Neale Hurston
- Narrated by: Ruby Dee
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Their Eyes Were Watching God, an American classic, is the luminous and haunting novel about Janie Crawford, a Southern Black woman in the 1930s, whose journey from a free-spirited girl to a woman of independence and substance has inspired writers and readers for close to 70 years.
-
-
perfection
- By Mel on 04-06-15
-
The City We Became
- By: N. K. Jemisin
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 16 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Manhattan, a young grad student gets off the train and realizes he doesn't remember who he is, where he's from, or even his own name. But he can sense the beating heart of the city, see its history, and feel its power. In the Bronx, a Lenape gallery director discovers strange graffiti scattered throughout the city, so beautiful and powerful it's as if the paint is literally calling to her. In Brooklyn, a politician and mother finds she can hear the songs of her city, pulsing to the beat of her Louboutin heels.
-
-
I don't understand the hype
- By Joe on 04-13-20
By: N. K. Jemisin
-
Mexican Gothic
- By: Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- Narrated by: Frankie Corzo
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
After receiving a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin begging for someone to save her from a mysterious doom, Noemí Taboada heads to High Place, a distant house in the Mexican countryside. She’s not sure what she will find—her cousin’s husband, a handsome Englishman, is a stranger, and Noemí knows little about the region.
-
-
Lacking, Disappointing, Not Developed
- By Bitten and Seven Forever on 07-10-20
-
Salvage the Bones
- A Novel
- By: Jesmyn Ward
- Narrated by: January LaVoy
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A hurricane is building, threatening the coastal town of Bois Sauvage, Mississippi, and Esch's father is growing concerned. A hard drinker, largely absent, he doesn't show concern for much else. Esch and her three brothers are stocking food, but there isn't much to save. Lately, Esch can't keep down what food she gets; she's 14 and pregnant. Her brother Skeetah is sneaking scraps for his prized pitbull's new litter, dying one by one in the dirt. Meanwhile, brothers Randall and Junior try to stake their claim in a family long on child's play and short on parenting.
-
-
Good but I wish I hadn't read it.
- By Jeanie on 01-26-21
By: Jesmyn Ward
-
The God of Good Looks
- A Novel
- By: Breanne McIvor
- Narrated by: Varia Williams, Alexis Rodney
- Length: 10 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Disgraced model-writer Bianca Bridge can’t stand hotshot makeup maven Obadiah Cortland. And he lets her know the feeling is mutual. But when working together is their last resort, they must navigate scandal, revenge, and unexpected affection to unlock the beauty that’s found in redemption.
-
-
Great story but read the book instead
- By Sierra Singh on 04-03-25
By: Breanne McIvor
-
Close Range
- Wyoming Stories (Selected Unabridged Stories)
- By: Annie Proulx
- Narrated by: Frances Fisher, Bruce Greenwood, Campbell Scott
- Length: 5 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Annie Proulx's masterful language and fierce love of Wyoming are evident in this collection of stories about loneliness, quick violence, and wrong kinds of love. In "The Mud Below", a rodeo rider's obsession marks the deepening fissures between his family life and self-imposed isolation. In "The Half-Skinned Steer", an elderly fool drives west to the ranch he grew up on for his brother's funeral, and dies a mile from home.
-
-
A Wonderfully Ironic and Surprising Read
- By Susan L. Stewart on 04-21-12
By: Annie Proulx
Critic reviews
“Dazzling.... Mootoo creates a dense Asian-Caribbean world of buried secrets and desperate memories, a hothouse in which stories grow as lushly as flowers.” (Books in Canada)
“The passion of the characters, their insistence to live, to find joy despite the tyranny under which they conduct their lives, makes Cereus Blooms at Night remarkable.” (Shyam Selvadurai, author of Funny Boy)
“[Mootoo's] language and characters seduce us away to a mythic place that is, by turns, as sweet as the first knowing of love and as hard as a callous blow. Inside the grand sweep of the story are the finely tuned details which mark a brilliant storyteller.” (Jewelle Gomez)
Better story teller
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.