Award-winning author Ling Zhang will talk about her book Gold Mountain Blues today as part of York University China Day, presented by the Chinese Program in the Department of Languages, Literatures & Linguistics (DLLL) in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies.
Zhang, who came to Canada in 1986, won China’s first Zhongshan Cup Overseas Chinese Literary Award in 2009 for Gold Mountain Blues, a story of five generations of the Fang family, from the 1860s to the present, in both Canada and China. The novel relates the struggles and sacrifices of the Chinese labourers who built the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the evolution of the modern Chinese-Canadian identity. It incorporates stories of people who came to Canada to pursue dreams of wealth and prosperity that quickly eluded them. The novel is expected to be published in Canada in 2011.
Left: Ling Zhang
Zhang is the author of four novels and two collections of short stories. She’s won numerous literary prizes, including the October Literary Award in 2000 and 2007, the International Chinese Literary Award for Best Essay in 2003, the first Yuan Huesong Literary Award in Canada in 2005 and the People’s Literary Prize in 2006.
In addition to a lecture by Zhang, there will also be a Chinese Language Speech Contest, which will take place from 1 to 2:30pm in S562 Ross Building, Keele campus. Zhang’s lecture will follow at 3pm.