York University’s Canadian Writers in Person Lecture Series will feature author Kagiso Lesego Molope on Nov. 5, who will read from her latest novel, Such a Lonely, Lovely Road.
The series features 11 authors who will present their work, answer questions and sign books. Canadian Writers in Person is a for-credit course for students. It is also a free-admission event for members of the public. All readings take place at 7 p.m. on select Tuesday evenings in 206 Accolade West Building, Keele Campus.
Ottawa-based Lesego Molope was born and educated in South Africa. Her first novel, Dancing in the Dust, was on the IBBY Honour List for 2006. Her second novel, The Mending Season, was chosen to be on the school curriculum in South Africa. This Book Betrays My Brother was awarded the Percy Fitzpatrick Prize by the English Academy of Southern Africa, where it was first published. Her latest novel, Such a Lonely, Lovely Road (Mawenzi House), was released in 2018. Winner of the 2019 Pius Adesanmi Memorial Award for Excellence in African Writing, it tackles an urgent issue in her country of birth.
All his life Kabelo Mosala has been the perfect child to his doting absent parents, who show him off every chance they get. Both his parents and his small community look forward to him coming back after medical school and joining his father’s practice. But Kabelo’s one wish has always been to get as far away from the township as he possibly can and never come back. A few weeks before he leaves for university, he forms a close bond with Sediba, one of his childhood friends, confirming his long-held suspicion that he is gay. Their relationship is thrown into turmoil by social pressures and conflicting desires, and it starts to look as if they can’t be together. But against all odds the two young men make their way back to each other, risking scorn from the community that raised them.
Other presentations scheduled in this series are:
Nov. 19: Téa Mutonji, Shut Up You’re Pretty, Arsenal Pulp Press
Dec. 3: Roo Borson, Cardinal in the Eastern White Cedar, Penguin Random House
2020
Jan. 14: Cherie Dimaline, The Marrow Thieves, Dancing Cat Books
Jan. 28: Uzma Jalaluddin, Ayesha at Last, Penguin Random House
Feb. 11: Carrianne Leung, That Time I Loved You, HarperCollins
March 3: E. Martin Nolan, Still Point, HMH Books
March 17: David Bezmozgis, Immigrant City, HarperCollins
Canadian Writers in Person is a course offered out of the Culture & Expression program in the Department of Humanities in York University’s Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies. For more information on the series, visit yorku.ca/laps/canwrite, call 416-736-5158, or email Professor Gail Vanstone at gailv@yorku.ca or Professor Leslie Sanders at leslie@yorku.ca.