Showcasing the Works of Kath Jonathan
CREATOR of novels, poems, short stories, photographs and gardens
photo by Marion Voysey
Kath’s first novel, The Resistance Painter is due out with Simon and Schuster Canada March 25, 2025. A poet, short story, and novel writer, Kath’s work has been short listed for the Marina Nemat Award for outstanding manuscript, has been a finalist for The Janice Colbert Poetry Award, long listed for The Puritan’s Thomas Morton Memorial Prize for short story, published by Penguin Random House in a chapbook and also in online literary magazines. She’s been a featured poetry reader at Art Bar, the oldest poetry reading series in Toronto.
The Resistance Painter asks how one can live with compassion and integrity in the midst of war, and if one can ever take a middle ground and remain morally clear. It also asks whether the stories families tell can be trusted as valid memories.
The novel is set in 1940's Warsaw and 2010 Toronto and two of the main characters are artists: Irena is the young painter of the title who joins the resistance and guides people through the sewers of Warsaw to safety from the Nazis. Jo, her granddaughter in the later story, is a sculptor specializing in making sculptures for grave sites. When the man she’s interviewing for her latest sculpture reveals a past very similar to her grandmother’s, Irena’s and Jo’s stories collide. The unfolding mystery unmakes both their worlds.
