While our narrator tries to complete this magnum opus, three lovers enter the story, one after the other, each transforming the endeavour: first, there is beautiful and sensual Selah, who scoffs at the narrator's constant tinkering with academic abstractions then altruistic and passionate Yara, who rescues every lost soul who crosses her path and finally, spiritual occultist Odalys, who values magic and superstition over the heady intellectual and cultural circles the narrator aspires to inhabit. Theory begins as its narrator sets out, like many a graduate student, to write a wildly ambitious thesis on the past, present, and future of art, culture, race, gender, class, and politics-a revolutionary work that its author believes will synthesize and thereby transform the world. This compact tour de force affirms Dionne Brand's place as one of Canada's most dazzling and influential artists.

A smart, sensual and witty novel about what happens when love and intellect are set on a collision course.

Dionne brand theory