Rebecca Fisseha will read from “Daughters of Silence” on Oct. 27
If you love meeting talented writers and hearing them read from their published work, or just want to soak up a unique cultural experience, don’t miss the opportunity to attend the Canadian Writers in Person Lecture Series.
The series gives attendees an opportunity to get up close and personal with an eclectic group of 11 authors while having the unique opportunity to engage with them in a dialogue about their work.
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 via Zoom. Links for each reading can be found here: https://cltr.huma.laps.yorku.ca/canwrite/.
This year’s lineup consists of a unique selection of emerging and established Canadian writers, whose writing explores a broad range of topics and geographical and cultural landscapes. Featuring seasoned and emerging poets and fiction writers, the series highlights Canada’s ever-growing literary talent.
The series will continue on Oct. 27 as Rebecca Fisseha reads from her novel, Daughters of Silence (Goose Lane).
Fisseha’s Daughters of Silence was chosen by CBC Books and 49th Shelf as one of the most anticipated books of fiction of the year and by Quill and Quire as one of the Best Books for 2019. Fisseha’s stories, personal essays and articles explore the unique and universal aspects of the Ethiopian diaspora and have appeared in literary journals and anthologies such as Room Magazine, Joyland, Lithub, Zora and Addis Ababa Noir. Born in Addis Ababa, Fisseha now lives in Toronto.
In the novel, as ash from the Eyjafjallajökul volcano fills the skies and flights are grounded throughout Europe, Dessie, a cosmopolitan flight attendant from Canada, finds herself stranded in Addis Ababa – her birth place.
Grieving her mother’s recent death, Dessie heads to see her grandfather, the Shaleqa – compelled as much by duty as her own will. But Dessie’s conflicted past stands in her way. Just as the volcano’s eruption disordered Dessie’s work life, so too does her mother’s death cause seismic disruptions in the fine balance of self-deceptions and false histories that uphold her family.
As Dessie reacquaints herself with her grandfather’s house, familiar yet strangely alien to her diasporic sensibilities, she pieces together the family secrets: the trauma of dictatorship and civil war, the shame of unwed motherhood, the abuse met with silence that gives shape to the mystery of her mother’s life.
Other presentations scheduled in this series are:
- Nov. 10: Michael Prior, Burning Province (Penguin Random House Canada)
- Nov. 24: Megan Gail Coles, Small Game Hunting at the Local Coward Gun Club (House of Anansi Press)
- Dec. 8: Sharon Butala, Season of Fury and Wonder (Coteau Books)
2021
- Jan. 19: Carol Rose GoldenEagle, Bone Black (Nightwood Editions)
- Feb. 2: S.D. Chrostowska, The Eyelid (Coach House Books)
- Feb. 23: Kaie Kellough, Dominoes at the Crossroads (Vehicule Press)
- March 9: Terry Watada, Mysterious Dreams of the Dead (Anvil Press)
- March 23: Cecily Nicholson, Wayside Sang (Talonbooks)
Canadian Writers in Person (AP/CLTR 1953 6.0A) is a course offered in 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, or email Professor Gail Vanstone at gailv@yorku.ca or Professor Leslie Sanders at leslie@yorku.ca.