On March 5, York’s Canadian Writers in Person course writer Kim Fu reading from her book, The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore. York U teaching assistant Dana Patrascu-Kingsley sent the following report to YFile.
Kim Fu visited York as part of the Canadian Writers in Person series on March 5 and talked about her book, The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore.
The book looks at how five girls, aged nine to 11, deal with a catastrophe during an overnight kayaking trip that leaves them stranded on a remote island. As the book progresses, we learn about the ways in which this trauma reverberates through each girl’s life story.
The writer said that The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore is about “larger societal forces as played out by little girls… The power dynamics that play out [in the camp] are specific to girls.”
The camp experience and the kayaking trip are a reminder that “people underestimate children and especially girls on how well they can do things. And people overestimate them when it comes to their emotional abilities (their psychological resiliency).”
Fu says, “I wanted to give intense literary focus to the inner lives of girls,” whose thoughts and feelings are often dismissed by the larger world. In Fu’s novel the world of girlhood is exciting and interesting, full of adventure, longing, and deep emotion.
David Chariandy will conclude this year’s Canadian Writers in Person reading series on March 19, with a talk about his novel Brother.
Readings are free and open to any member of the public. For more information, contact Professor Leslie Sanders at leslie@yorku.ca or Professor Gail Vanstone at gailv@yorku.ca. All readings are held Tuesdays from 7 to 9 p.m. in Room 206, Accolade West Building, Keele Campus.