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Rohinton Mistry and PEN Canada at IFOA, Tweeted
Last night a rare appearance by Rohinton Mistry opened the 2012 International Festival of Authors at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre. The evening was a benefit for PEN Canada—and featured the author giving an enchanting reading about his childhood, several of his incredible and unexpected bursts into song, as well as a chat on stage with the CBC’s…
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Art and document: A review of the ROM’s “Observance and Memorial: Photographs from S-21, Cambodia”
In 1975, Cambodian dictator Pol Pot began purging the country of citizens accused of undermining his Khmer Rouge party. By 1979, over 2 million people had been arrested, tortured and killed. During that time, 14,000 men, women and children had been filtered through Security Prison-21 (S-21), an old high school-turned-prison used for interrogating detainees. Of…
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Reflecting on Amy Hempel’s “In A Tub”
After reading Amy Hempel’s “In a Tub,” I felt inspired to reflect on the story. Two years ago, I posted this essay on my blog, A Long Story Short. I eyed my grey, suede moon boots and my white ski jacket in the front closet, smelled snow on the draft seeping through the front…
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Mirabilia: A Miracle on Gladstone Avenue
I’ve always wanted to go into St. Anne’s Church, tucked away on Gladstone Ave, just north of Dundas St. West, but not to feed religious urges, more out of art historical interest: the Anglican church, Canada’s only Byzantine-style edifice, is home to a series of religious paintings created by the Group of Seven. This past…
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Schiaparelli and Prada: Impossible Conversations
Schiaparelli & Prada: Impossible Conversations By Andrew Bolton and Harold Koda. Introduction by Judith Thurman. New Haven and London: Yale University Press-Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012. 324 pages; 206 illustrations. This summer, the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art juxtaposed the works of two influential Italian women in fashion design: Elsa Schiaparelli,…
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Tamil literary voices: An event in preview
“We were shivering. We were locking our doors and waiting. You could hear people shouting and houses burning.” Appadurai Muttulingam’s words express an experience too common to many Tamils, a people forced out of Sri Lanka in droves over the last four decades after facing rioting, killing, and oppression. And while sweeping statements like “great…
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CanLit Canon Review #10: Gabrielle Roy’s The Tin Flute
In an attempt to make himself a better Canadian, Craig MacBride is reading and reviewing the books that shaped this country. The Tin Flute, Gabrielle Roy’s debut novel, explores poverty, war, and Montreal, and it romanticizes none of them. The book centers on the 10-member Lacasse family, which is trapped by poverty in the suburban…
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Bookishness: October 15, 2012
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…
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Indigenous Literary Stars Converge in Toronto: First Nations House and Muskrat Magazine partner up to celebrate storytelling excellence
First Nations House at the University of Toronto will be hosting the fifth annual celebration of the Indigenous Writers’ Gathering on October 18, 2012. Not to be missed, the event will end with a gala reading night hosted by CBC’s Sidd Bobb and Wab Kinew. Participating Aboriginal authors this year include the renowned Lee Maracle,…
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On Novels of Ideas: Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s 36 Arguments for the Existence of God: A Work of Fiction
Michael Da Silva takes a pause from his account of Rebecca Newberger Goldstein’s list of the best novel of ideas to examine her most recent novel.
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Choice Poems: Zach Wells and Naomi Guttman
The TRB team is pleased to announce Choice Poems, a semi-regular series of poems on Chirograph curated by the TRB’s Poetry Editor, Moez Surani. For this, the first Choice Poems post, we’re climbing under the covers and into a lover’s heart with a pairing of poems on love and temptation. Zach Wells shows how a lover…
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Bookishness: Oct. 8, 2012
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…