Mo Yan takes the cake Chinese author Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for literature last week, and, despite criticism about his snug relationship with the Communist Party, promptly called for the release of fellow Nobel laureate, jailed activist Liu Xiaobo. Can’t ask Alice Alice Munro’s appearance at the International Festival of Authors has been cancelled due to her fragile health...
The Paris Review, to go The Paris Review launches their new iPad/iPhone app, with current and archived issues, free to all until Oct. 21. (At first try; a bit slow to load, with strange formatting on the iPhone 4, but well worth it to read David Gordon’s “Man-Boob Summer” from the current issue.) Wednesday: John Banville at Harbourfront Centre The author will read from his new...
Nicole Krauss, author of Great House, The History of Love, and Man Walks into a Room, as well as many short stories, read an unpublished story at Luminato this week, entitled “A garden is an arrangement of light.” It was a special event, introduced by the visibly excited artistic director of Luminato, Jorn Weisbrodt, and attended by his fiancé Rufus Wainwright, both friends of...
Annie Proulx spoke to New Yorker fiction editor, Deborah Treisman, at the Bell Lightbox on Sunday, June 12, as part of the Luminato Festival. Talk turned to environmentalism, her characters, including the famous gay ranchers of Brokeback Mountain, and her beloved typewriter. The first hint from Annie Proulx of her Luddite leanings came early on, when discussing how she learned to write. The...
The 2012 Luminato Festival hosts its author series this week, and last night’s talk with Annie Proulx augers well for the rest. Our picks: author Nicole Krauss on Monday night at 7 p.m. at the Bell Lightbox Lapham’s Quarterly eponymous founding editor Lewis Lapham on Thursday the 14th at 7 p.m; Linden MacIntyre, Ayad Akhtar and Kyo Maclear all together on Saturday, June...
Listen here: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser. Peta-Gaye Nash started the Jamaica 50 series at the Toronto Public Library with readings from her short story collection, I Too Hear the Drums. She is a short-story and children’s book author born...
The Toronto of Review of Books brings you podcasts, interviews and book reviews following the Jamaica 50 series. More than 230,000 people of Jamaican heritage live in Canada; almost 160,000 in the GTA. In celebration of that community’s long history, and of Jamaica’s independence, the Toronto Public Library and the group Jamaica 50 are holding a series of author events at libraries across Toronto...