https://simplecast.com Writers Off the Page: From the TIFA Archives A monthly series produced and curated by Toronto Public Library (TPL), celebrating the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA). Episodes feature recorded on-stage interviews, readings or panel discussions with some of the 20th century's best-known writers and thinkers. Hosted by novelist, Randy Boyagoda. 2019 Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA en Wed, 22 Apr 2026 15:00:00 +0000 Wed, 22 Apr 2026 15:00:14 +0000 https://writersoffthepage.ca Writers Off the Page: From the TIFA Archives https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/d08fb21e-6028-44f9-9263-d34bf5e6de11/340b8514-210a-47a4-90e9-11cd225ab19d/3000x3000/wotp-instagram-post-1080x1080.jpg?aid=rss_feed https://writersoffthepage.ca episodic A monthly series produced and curated by Toronto Public Library (TPL), celebrating the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA). Episodes feature recorded on-stage interviews, readings or panel discussions with some of the 20th century's best-known writers and thinkers. Hosted by novelist, Randy Boyagoda. Toronto Public Library false https://feeds.simplecast.com/4iwqIVZJ authors, archival, archives, arts, reading, interviews, culture, library, canlit, tifa, books, toronto, literature, toronto public library, tpl, writers Toronto Public Library toleksuik@tpl.ca 777c7e3e-4fd5-436e-bb87-b30d84f4512d Martha Gellhorn: The Face of War In this electrifying episode of Writers Off the Page: From the TIFA Archives, travel back to October 1992 to hear Martha Gellhorn — novelist, journalist, and witness to nearly every major conflict of the twentieth century — read from the newly revised conclusion to her landmark book The Face of War, first published in 1959 and updated across five editions as Gellhorn found herself, again and again, unable to look away.

At 84, in what would prove to be one of her final public appearances, Gellhorn arrives at the Harbourfront stage not to reminisce but to provoke. She takes phrases we have heard so often they have lost their edges — we love our boys, better dead than red, we won the Cold War — and holds them up to the light until the rot shows through. What emerges is something rare: a moral reckoning delivered with the authority of someone who was actually there, on the ground, in Spain, in Finland, in China, across Europe, in Vietnam, in Central America, watching ordinary people absorb the violence that leaders and slogans set in motion from a safe distance.

Listen as she traces the evolution of The Face of War through five decades and five editions — each expansion driven not by ambition but by outrage she could not suppress. She describes going to Vietnam in 1966 because the reporting she was reading bore no resemblance to what she knew war actually looked like for the people living inside it. She recounts her time in El Salvador and Nicaragua, where she came to believe that American foreign policy had decided, simply, that the poor were dangerous. And she reflects on the lesson she believes governments drew from Vietnam: that the real threat to a war effort is not the enemy, but a free press.

The reading itself — Gellhorn's newly written conclusion for the 1992 edition — crackles with the same controlled fury. She takes on the arms trade with particular ferocity, arguing that governments which prosecute the drug trade while freely selling weapons to anyone who can pay are guilty of a hypocrisy that dwarfs anything crack or heroin has ever produced. She calls out the Cold War as a forty-year waste that bankrupted both superpowers while the world's poorest people paid in blood. She offers a rare note of genuine admiration for Mikhail Gorbachev — the one world leader in her experience who chose to step back from catastrophe rather than toward it. And she closes, as she always did, not with hope exactly, but with the refusal to pretend that silence is acceptable.

This recording has a great deal to say to us now. The wars Gellhorn names have changed; the logic she describes has not. Embedded journalism, managed media access, government-approved narratives of conflict — the tools she identified in 1992 have only grown more sophisticated. The gap between military spending and spending on citizens has only widened. The arms trade she called more destructive than the drug trade continues to dwarf it. And the civilians who pay the price — nameless, numerous, dying in conflicts they did not choose — remain, as she put it, out of sight.

What Gellhorn offers, in the end, is not a political programme but something more demanding: the insistence that if you believe something is evil, silence is itself a sin. She called her own contribution a squeak. It still carries.

Recommended Reading & Viewing

By Martha Gellhorn

About Martha Gellhorn

Film & Video

The audio recording of Martha Gellhorn was recorded on stage at Harbourfront in Toronto in October 1992 and is used with the permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Learn more about Canada's largest book festival, and its many year-round events and programs, at FestivalOfAuthors.ca.

]]> Wed, 22 Apr 2026 15:00:00 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Randy Boyagoda, martha gellhorn, ernest hemingway, gregory mccormick) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/martha-gellhorn-the-face-of-war-RxPE4KDo In this electrifying episode of Writers Off the Page: From the TIFA Archives, travel back to October 1992 to hear Martha Gellhorn — novelist, journalist, and witness to nearly every major conflict of the twentieth century — read from the newly revised conclusion to her landmark book The Face of War, first published in 1959 and updated across five editions as Gellhorn found herself, again and again, unable to look away.

At 84, in what would prove to be one of her final public appearances, Gellhorn arrives at the Harbourfront stage not to reminisce but to provoke. She takes phrases we have heard so often they have lost their edges — we love our boys, better dead than red, we won the Cold War — and holds them up to the light until the rot shows through. What emerges is something rare: a moral reckoning delivered with the authority of someone who was actually there, on the ground, in Spain, in Finland, in China, across Europe, in Vietnam, in Central America, watching ordinary people absorb the violence that leaders and slogans set in motion from a safe distance.

Listen as she traces the evolution of The Face of War through five decades and five editions — each expansion driven not by ambition but by outrage she could not suppress. She describes going to Vietnam in 1966 because the reporting she was reading bore no resemblance to what she knew war actually looked like for the people living inside it. She recounts her time in El Salvador and Nicaragua, where she came to believe that American foreign policy had decided, simply, that the poor were dangerous. And she reflects on the lesson she believes governments drew from Vietnam: that the real threat to a war effort is not the enemy, but a free press.

The reading itself — Gellhorn's newly written conclusion for the 1992 edition — crackles with the same controlled fury. She takes on the arms trade with particular ferocity, arguing that governments which prosecute the drug trade while freely selling weapons to anyone who can pay are guilty of a hypocrisy that dwarfs anything crack or heroin has ever produced. She calls out the Cold War as a forty-year waste that bankrupted both superpowers while the world's poorest people paid in blood. She offers a rare note of genuine admiration for Mikhail Gorbachev — the one world leader in her experience who chose to step back from catastrophe rather than toward it. And she closes, as she always did, not with hope exactly, but with the refusal to pretend that silence is acceptable.

This recording has a great deal to say to us now. The wars Gellhorn names have changed; the logic she describes has not. Embedded journalism, managed media access, government-approved narratives of conflict — the tools she identified in 1992 have only grown more sophisticated. The gap between military spending and spending on citizens has only widened. The arms trade she called more destructive than the drug trade continues to dwarf it. And the civilians who pay the price — nameless, numerous, dying in conflicts they did not choose — remain, as she put it, out of sight.

What Gellhorn offers, in the end, is not a political programme but something more demanding: the insistence that if you believe something is evil, silence is itself a sin. She called her own contribution a squeak. It still carries.

Recommended Reading & Viewing

By Martha Gellhorn

About Martha Gellhorn

Film & Video

The audio recording of Martha Gellhorn was recorded on stage at Harbourfront in Toronto in October 1992 and is used with the permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Learn more about Canada's largest book festival, and its many year-round events and programs, at FestivalOfAuthors.ca.

]]> Martha Gellhorn: The Face of War Randy Boyagoda, martha gellhorn, ernest hemingway, gregory mccormick 00:36:29 Martha Gellhorn, one of the twentieth century's most fearless war correspondents, delivers a searing indictment of militarism, the global arms trade, and the myth of the "good war" in this archival recording from the Toronto International Festival of Authors, captured in October 1992. Martha Gellhorn, one of the twentieth century's most fearless war correspondents, delivers a searing indictment of militarism, the global arms trade, and the myth of the "good war" in this archival recording from the Toronto International Festival of Authors, captured in October 1992. war journalism, war correspondence, war, spanish civil war, vietnam war, martha gellhorn false full 2 3 5c877111-4052-41fb-bd6e-19f4588d2e85 Linda Gray Sexton: Anne Sexton's 45 Mercy Street Content Warning: This episode contains references to suicide. Listener discretion is advised. Please take care of yourself and seek support if needed.

In this moving episode of Writers Off the Page: From the TIFA Archives, travel back to October 1994 to hear Linda Gray Sexton speak candidly about the complex legacy of being Anne Sexton's daughter. Her intimate presentation at Harbourfront, allows the author to reflect on the tangled relationship between a brilliant, troubled poet and the daughter who became her literary executor at age 21—the same year Anne took her own life.

Listen as she shares the unforgettable moment of discovering a letter her mother wrote to "the 40-year-old Linda," a message across time that served as both farewell and benediction. She explores the honest, painful inversions of their relationship—including the unsettling ritual of "playing nine," where adult and child traded places in ways no child should experience. Yet she also retrieves moments of pure maternal love, like a rainy Thanksgiving afternoon when they lay together watching pheasants in the yard, a memory Anne would immortalize in her poem "The Fortress."

This recording captures Linda at a pivotal moment: twenty years after her mother's death, having moved from anger through empathy to forgiveness, ready at last to speak back to the voice that never stopped addressing her. Her journey illuminates the weight of literary executorship, the complications of loving someone who was both mentor and burden, and the hard-won understanding that came only after she herself became a mother and weathered her own depression.

As Anne Sexton wrote in the poem that gives this episode its title: "I walk, I walk. / I hold matches at street signs / for it is dark, / as dark as the leathery dead / and I have lost my green eyes / my way, my way." Anne Sexton spent her life searching for 45 Mercy Street—that metaphorical home where past and present reconcile, where confrontation joins hands with forgiveness. She never found it. But perhaps, in writing this memoir, her daughter finally did.

***

SHOW NOTES

The audio recording of Linda Gray Sexton was recorded on stage at Harbourfront Reading Series in October 1994 and is used with the permission of Linda Gray Sexton and the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Learn more about Canada's largest book festival, and its many year-round events and programs, at FestivalOfAuthors.ca. 

Click here to check out Seasons One and Two of Writers Off the Page where you'll be able to listen to more than 30 previous episodes which feature Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Carlos Fuentes, Jamaica Kincaid and many more.

Recommended Reading & Viewing

Books by Anne Sexton

Books by Linda Gray Sexton

Books About Anne Sexton

About the Host of Writers Off the Page

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

 

]]> Wed, 21 Jan 2026 13:00:00 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Linda Gray Sexton, Randy Boyagoda) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/linda-gray-sexton-anne-sextons-45-mercy-street-d0r8J7bb Content Warning: This episode contains references to suicide. Listener discretion is advised. Please take care of yourself and seek support if needed.

In this moving episode of Writers Off the Page: From the TIFA Archives, travel back to October 1994 to hear Linda Gray Sexton speak candidly about the complex legacy of being Anne Sexton's daughter. Her intimate presentation at Harbourfront, allows the author to reflect on the tangled relationship between a brilliant, troubled poet and the daughter who became her literary executor at age 21—the same year Anne took her own life.

Listen as she shares the unforgettable moment of discovering a letter her mother wrote to "the 40-year-old Linda," a message across time that served as both farewell and benediction. She explores the honest, painful inversions of their relationship—including the unsettling ritual of "playing nine," where adult and child traded places in ways no child should experience. Yet she also retrieves moments of pure maternal love, like a rainy Thanksgiving afternoon when they lay together watching pheasants in the yard, a memory Anne would immortalize in her poem "The Fortress."

This recording captures Linda at a pivotal moment: twenty years after her mother's death, having moved from anger through empathy to forgiveness, ready at last to speak back to the voice that never stopped addressing her. Her journey illuminates the weight of literary executorship, the complications of loving someone who was both mentor and burden, and the hard-won understanding that came only after she herself became a mother and weathered her own depression.

As Anne Sexton wrote in the poem that gives this episode its title: "I walk, I walk. / I hold matches at street signs / for it is dark, / as dark as the leathery dead / and I have lost my green eyes / my way, my way." Anne Sexton spent her life searching for 45 Mercy Street—that metaphorical home where past and present reconcile, where confrontation joins hands with forgiveness. She never found it. But perhaps, in writing this memoir, her daughter finally did.

***

SHOW NOTES

The audio recording of Linda Gray Sexton was recorded on stage at Harbourfront Reading Series in October 1994 and is used with the permission of Linda Gray Sexton and the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Learn more about Canada's largest book festival, and its many year-round events and programs, at FestivalOfAuthors.ca. 

Click here to check out Seasons One and Two of Writers Off the Page where you'll be able to listen to more than 30 previous episodes which feature Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Carlos Fuentes, Jamaica Kincaid and many more.

Recommended Reading & Viewing

Books by Anne Sexton

Books by Linda Gray Sexton

Books About Anne Sexton

About the Host of Writers Off the Page

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

 

]]> Linda Gray Sexton: Anne Sexton's 45 Mercy Street Linda Gray Sexton, Randy Boyagoda 00:44:59 Linda Gray Sexton, daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anne Sexton, discusses her 1994 memoir Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton in this powerful archival recording from the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Linda Gray Sexton, daughter of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Anne Sexton, discusses her 1994 memoir Searching for Mercy Street: My Journey Back to My Mother, Anne Sexton in this powerful archival recording from the Toronto International Festival of Authors. american poetry, anne sexton, poetry, sylvia plath, maxine kumin, linda gray sexton false full 1 3 de850cd6-b44c-4ee9-abc7-db439c52a29b Seamus Heaney: Death of a Naturalist In this captivating episode of Writers Off the Page: From the TIFA Archives, step back in time to 1990 Toronto and immerse yourself in the lyrical world of Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney. The recording captures Heaney in an intimate reading at the Harbourfront Reading Series, where his distinctive Irish voice brings to life some of his most beloved poems, including "Digging," "Follower," and "The Railway Children."

Heaney's verse resonates with the earthy cadence of his native countryside, conjuring vivid tableaux of his heritage—his father's calloused hands excavating potatoes from resistant soil, his aunt's practiced movements transforming flour into sustenance, and his boyhood self gazing skyward, convinced that rain-slicked telegraph wires conducted not just electricity but human connection itself. With characteristic warmth and humour, Heaney considers his creative process, discussing how his Irish upbringing and English literary education influenced his distinctive poetic voice. This rare archival recording reveals not just Heaney's masterful command of language, but also his generosity of spirit and deep humanity. Whether you're a longtime admirer of Heaney's work or discovering his poetry for the first time, this episode offers a remarkable opportunity to hear one of the 20th century's greatest poets bringing his words to life in his own voice.

***

This audio recording of Seamus Heaney, recorded on stage at Harbourfront Reading Series in 1990, is used with the kind permission of Faber & Faber and the Estate of Seamus Heaney, as well as the Toronto International Festival of Authors.Find out more about all of TIFA’s Canadian and international author events, both virtual, in-person and on-demand, at FestivalOfAuthors.ca.  

Click here to check out Season One of Writers Off the Page where you'll be able to listen to all 26 episodes which feature Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Nikki Giovanni, Grace Paley and many more.


***

SHOW NOTES

Works by Seamus Heaney

Death of a Naturalist (print edition)
New Selected Poems (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone (print edition) (ebook)
Finders Keepers: Selected Prose (print edition)
Station Island (print edition) 

Other works about Heaney and other materials

On Seamus Heaney by R.F. Foster (print edition)
Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney (print edition)
The Poet & the Piper: Music by Seamus Heaney and Liam O'Flynn (music file via Hoopla) 
Seamus Heaney's Poetry of Remembrance (documentary via Kanopy)

About the Host of Writers Off the Page

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Fri, 2 May 2025 20:00:00 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/seamus-heaney-death-of-a-naturalist-Se1XiGbf In this captivating episode of Writers Off the Page: From the TIFA Archives, step back in time to 1990 Toronto and immerse yourself in the lyrical world of Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney. The recording captures Heaney in an intimate reading at the Harbourfront Reading Series, where his distinctive Irish voice brings to life some of his most beloved poems, including "Digging," "Follower," and "The Railway Children."

Heaney's verse resonates with the earthy cadence of his native countryside, conjuring vivid tableaux of his heritage—his father's calloused hands excavating potatoes from resistant soil, his aunt's practiced movements transforming flour into sustenance, and his boyhood self gazing skyward, convinced that rain-slicked telegraph wires conducted not just electricity but human connection itself. With characteristic warmth and humour, Heaney considers his creative process, discussing how his Irish upbringing and English literary education influenced his distinctive poetic voice. This rare archival recording reveals not just Heaney's masterful command of language, but also his generosity of spirit and deep humanity. Whether you're a longtime admirer of Heaney's work or discovering his poetry for the first time, this episode offers a remarkable opportunity to hear one of the 20th century's greatest poets bringing his words to life in his own voice.

***

This audio recording of Seamus Heaney, recorded on stage at Harbourfront Reading Series in 1990, is used with the kind permission of Faber & Faber and the Estate of Seamus Heaney, as well as the Toronto International Festival of Authors.Find out more about all of TIFA’s Canadian and international author events, both virtual, in-person and on-demand, at FestivalOfAuthors.ca.  

Click here to check out Season One of Writers Off the Page where you'll be able to listen to all 26 episodes which feature Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Nikki Giovanni, Grace Paley and many more.


***

SHOW NOTES

Works by Seamus Heaney

Death of a Naturalist (print edition)
New Selected Poems (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
The Burial at Thebes: A Version of Sophocles' Antigone (print edition) (ebook)
Finders Keepers: Selected Prose (print edition)
Station Island (print edition) 

Other works about Heaney and other materials

On Seamus Heaney by R.F. Foster (print edition)
Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus Heaney (print edition)
The Poet & the Piper: Music by Seamus Heaney and Liam O'Flynn (music file via Hoopla) 
Seamus Heaney's Poetry of Remembrance (documentary via Kanopy)

About the Host of Writers Off the Page

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Seamus Heaney: Death of a Naturalist Toronto Public Library 00:31:04 Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney reads some of his best-known poems in a 1990 performance in front of a Toronto crowd as part of the Harbourfront Reading Series (now called Toronto International Festival of Authors). Nobel Prize-winning poet Seamus Heaney reads some of his best-known poems in a 1990 performance in front of a Toronto crowd as part of the Harbourfront Reading Series (now called Toronto International Festival of Authors). false full 7 2 9406d6f4-a1d1-4eef-a711-7622dfca8930 Carlos Fuentes: From Illusion to Reality This conversation between Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes and Bob Rae, recorded in 2000, offers a time capsule of North American relations at a pivotal moment. The interview captures Fuentes just after Mexico's historic election that ended the PRI party's 71-year rule—a seismic political shift that he explains with characteristic depth and nuance. While Fuentes delves into Mexican politics with a detail that might seem excessive to casual listeners, his purpose is profound: he's illustrating how Mexico's complex political evolution deserves the same serious consideration given to more dominant nations.

What's particularly striking, viewed from today, is Fuentes' perspective on North American identity and free trade. Speaking when NAFTA was relatively new, he offers insights that feel remarkably prescient as we witness the pendulum swing from the market-linked regional identities of the 1990s toward the more protectionist national boundaries of today. As a cosmopolitan intellectual fluent in Spanish, English, and French, Fuentes represents a vision of North America that transcends borders while acknowledging deep cultural differences—"the differences are huge," he admits.

Despite his global perspective, Fuentes finds his deepest meaning in the personal: "Grandmothers are the best novelists," he tells Rae, suggesting that family storytelling contains more authentic truth than official histories. This tension between grand political narratives and intimate personal stories runs throughout their conversation, as Fuentes discusses his disciplined writing routine, his diplomat father's influence, and the powerful female protagonist of his then-new novel, The Years with Laura Diaz.

Throughout this exchange, we witness Fuentes' remarkable ability to weave together cultural creation and political engagement, offering a unified vision of human experience that remains relevant despite—or perhaps because of—the dramatic changes in our world since 2000.

***

The audio recording of Carlos Fuentes in conversation with Bob Rae was recorded on stage in Toronto in October of 2000 and is used with the permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Find out more about all of TIFA’s Canadian and international author events, both virtual, in-person and on-demand, at FestivalOfAuthors.ca.   

Click here to check out Season One of Writers Off the Page where you'll be able to listen to all 26 episodes which feature Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Nikki Giovanni, Grace Paley and many more.

***

SHOW NOTES

Works by Carlos Fuentes

The Old Gringo (ebook) (print edition)
The Years with Laura Diaz (print edition) (ebook)
Vlad: a Novel (audiobook) (ebook)
The Death of Artemio Cruz (print book)
Terra Nostra (print book)
Where the Air is Clear (print book)
Aura (print book)

Other Related Books or Materials

About the Host of Writers Off the Page

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Thu, 20 Mar 2025 16:00:00 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/carlos-fuentes-from-illusion-to-reality-VL91uERC This conversation between Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes and Bob Rae, recorded in 2000, offers a time capsule of North American relations at a pivotal moment. The interview captures Fuentes just after Mexico's historic election that ended the PRI party's 71-year rule—a seismic political shift that he explains with characteristic depth and nuance. While Fuentes delves into Mexican politics with a detail that might seem excessive to casual listeners, his purpose is profound: he's illustrating how Mexico's complex political evolution deserves the same serious consideration given to more dominant nations.

What's particularly striking, viewed from today, is Fuentes' perspective on North American identity and free trade. Speaking when NAFTA was relatively new, he offers insights that feel remarkably prescient as we witness the pendulum swing from the market-linked regional identities of the 1990s toward the more protectionist national boundaries of today. As a cosmopolitan intellectual fluent in Spanish, English, and French, Fuentes represents a vision of North America that transcends borders while acknowledging deep cultural differences—"the differences are huge," he admits.

Despite his global perspective, Fuentes finds his deepest meaning in the personal: "Grandmothers are the best novelists," he tells Rae, suggesting that family storytelling contains more authentic truth than official histories. This tension between grand political narratives and intimate personal stories runs throughout their conversation, as Fuentes discusses his disciplined writing routine, his diplomat father's influence, and the powerful female protagonist of his then-new novel, The Years with Laura Diaz.

Throughout this exchange, we witness Fuentes' remarkable ability to weave together cultural creation and political engagement, offering a unified vision of human experience that remains relevant despite—or perhaps because of—the dramatic changes in our world since 2000.

***

The audio recording of Carlos Fuentes in conversation with Bob Rae was recorded on stage in Toronto in October of 2000 and is used with the permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Find out more about all of TIFA’s Canadian and international author events, both virtual, in-person and on-demand, at FestivalOfAuthors.ca.   

Click here to check out Season One of Writers Off the Page where you'll be able to listen to all 26 episodes which feature Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Nikki Giovanni, Grace Paley and many more.

***

SHOW NOTES

Works by Carlos Fuentes

The Old Gringo (ebook) (print edition)
The Years with Laura Diaz (print edition) (ebook)
Vlad: a Novel (audiobook) (ebook)
The Death of Artemio Cruz (print book)
Terra Nostra (print book)
Where the Air is Clear (print book)
Aura (print book)

Other Related Books or Materials

About the Host of Writers Off the Page

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Carlos Fuentes: From Illusion to Reality Toronto Public Library 00:45:30 Bob Rae talks to Mexican writer, Carlos Fuentes, in Toronto in 2000. Bob Rae talks to Mexican writer, Carlos Fuentes, in Toronto in 2000. false full 6 2 cd4b87a0-16b2-4343-907b-79edf138b751 Ursula Le Guin: Don't Push the River In October of 2000, Ursula K. Le Guin sat down with CBC's Marilyn Powell to discuss her novel, The Telling. Listening to their conversation now feels like opening a time capsule – one that paradoxically contains prescient observations about how we both preserve and erase our past. Le Guin speaks of editing with razor blades, of physically cutting away words from paper – a practice that feels almost mythological in our age of ephemeral keystrokes and vanishing digital drafts. Yet within this seemingly dated discussion emerges a timeless truth: that our past exists only through the artifacts and stories we choose to keep. As she weaves between discussing myth-making and the tactile nature of writing, Le Guin reveals how community-held stories become the framework through which we understand our history. These aren't just tales, she suggests, but rather the very architecture of human memory, the scaffolding that holds our collective past in place. There's something haunting about hearing the author, now herself part of our literary past, contemplating how we maintain connections to what came before. Yet in her voice, we hear not anxiety but wonder at how each generation finds new ways to tell its stories, to make sense of where it's been.

Perhaps that's the most enduring message from this conversation across time: that while the tools we use to record and share our stories may change, the essential human need to weave meaning from memory remains constant, evolving and adapting like a living thing.

***

The audio recording of Ursula Le Guin in conversation with Marilyn Powell was recorded on stage at in Toronto in October of 2000 and is used with the permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Find out more about all of TIFA’s Canadian and international author events, both virtual, in-person and on-demand, at FestivalOfAuthors.ca.  

Click here to check out Season One of Writers Off the Page where you'll be able to listen to all 26 episodes which feature Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Nikki Giovanni, Grace Paley and many more.


***

Works by Ursula K. Le Guin:
The Telling (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
The Lathe of Heaven (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
The Left Hand of Darkness (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
The Word for World is Forest (ebook)

Other works about Le Guin and other materials mentioned:
Ursula Le Guin: the Last Interview and Other Conversations (print edition)
Ursula K. Le Guin and the Ambiguous Utopia (emovie)
Earthsea, 2005 (DVD)
TPL Blog piece from 2018 on Le Guin and her legacy (link here)

About the Host of Writers Off the Page

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Thu, 30 Jan 2025 17:00:00 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Randy Boyagoda, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ursula Le Guin, Marilyn Powell) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/ursula-le-guin-dont-push-the-river-HvZGi1_c In October of 2000, Ursula K. Le Guin sat down with CBC's Marilyn Powell to discuss her novel, The Telling. Listening to their conversation now feels like opening a time capsule – one that paradoxically contains prescient observations about how we both preserve and erase our past. Le Guin speaks of editing with razor blades, of physically cutting away words from paper – a practice that feels almost mythological in our age of ephemeral keystrokes and vanishing digital drafts. Yet within this seemingly dated discussion emerges a timeless truth: that our past exists only through the artifacts and stories we choose to keep. As she weaves between discussing myth-making and the tactile nature of writing, Le Guin reveals how community-held stories become the framework through which we understand our history. These aren't just tales, she suggests, but rather the very architecture of human memory, the scaffolding that holds our collective past in place. There's something haunting about hearing the author, now herself part of our literary past, contemplating how we maintain connections to what came before. Yet in her voice, we hear not anxiety but wonder at how each generation finds new ways to tell its stories, to make sense of where it's been.

Perhaps that's the most enduring message from this conversation across time: that while the tools we use to record and share our stories may change, the essential human need to weave meaning from memory remains constant, evolving and adapting like a living thing.

***

The audio recording of Ursula Le Guin in conversation with Marilyn Powell was recorded on stage at in Toronto in October of 2000 and is used with the permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Find out more about all of TIFA’s Canadian and international author events, both virtual, in-person and on-demand, at FestivalOfAuthors.ca.  

Click here to check out Season One of Writers Off the Page where you'll be able to listen to all 26 episodes which feature Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Nikki Giovanni, Grace Paley and many more.


***

Works by Ursula K. Le Guin:
The Telling (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
The Lathe of Heaven (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
The Left Hand of Darkness (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
The Word for World is Forest (ebook)

Other works about Le Guin and other materials mentioned:
Ursula Le Guin: the Last Interview and Other Conversations (print edition)
Ursula K. Le Guin and the Ambiguous Utopia (emovie)
Earthsea, 2005 (DVD)
TPL Blog piece from 2018 on Le Guin and her legacy (link here)

About the Host of Writers Off the Page

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Ursula Le Guin: Don't Push the River Randy Boyagoda, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ursula Le Guin, Marilyn Powell 00:44:25 American Sci-fi / Speculative Fiction writer, Ursula K. Le Guin talks to Marilyn Powell (CBC Ideas) in Toronto in 2000. American Sci-fi / Speculative Fiction writer, Ursula K. Le Guin talks to Marilyn Powell (CBC Ideas) in Toronto in 2000. harbourfront, speculative fiction, toronto, science fiction, fantasy, tifa false full 5 2 cd97aeeb-3cf7-477d-a55f-783843716094 Saul Bellow: Wires not Roots EPISODE SUMMARY

Listening to this 1988 conversation between Nobel-prize winning American writer, Saul Bellow, and former Canadian Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson, we possess the advantage of hindsight. In the midst of a US presidential election, Bellow bemoans the vapid discourse between candidates George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis—their language constrained by groupthink and moral rigidity and the fact that neither one says anything worth listening to. One almost wants to say aloud: "Bellow, stop! Be careful what you wish for!" After the election we've just had—36 years later—it seems almost quaint to think that US presidential candidates are plagued with the problem of not saying enough. Clarkson delicately puts pressure on Bellow to claim a tribe: not only in terms of his Jewishness, but is he really a misogynist, and what's the deal with the accusations of racism against him? Bellow's defense that these questions feel "McCarthyite" in their demand for loyalty is both incisive and ironically blind to its own implications. Though he stands as one of America's most significant literary voices of the 20th century, Bellow emerges here as a figure suspended between eras, embodying both timeless insight and the beautiful limitations of his age.

***

The audio recording of Saul Bellow in conversation with Adrienne Clarkson was recorded on stage at Harbourfront Reading Series in 1988. It's used with the permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Find out more about all of TIFA’s Canadian and international author events, both virtual, in-person and on-demand, at FestivalOfAuthors.ca. 

Click here to check out Season One of Writers Off the Page where you'll be able to listen to all 26 episodes which feature Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Nikki Giovanni, Grace Paley and many more.

***

SHOW NOTES

Works by Saul Bellow
More Die of Heartbreak (print edition) (ebook)
Dangling Man (print edition) (ebook)
Humboldt's Gift (print edition) (audiobook)
Herzog (print edition) 
There is Simply too much to Think About: Collected Essays (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
Saul Bellow: Letters (print edition) (ebook)

Works about Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow: I was a Jew and an American and a Writer by Gerald Soring (print edition)
Saul Bellow's Heart: a Son's Memoir by Greg Bellow (print edition)

Other Related Books or Materials

The Adventures of Saul Bellow: a video featuring Martin Amis on Bellow's life and career
Seize the Day: a 1986 film adaptation of a 1965 Saul Bellow work
"Saul Bellow is now a stamp" (this link opens an article from Lithub from Feb 2024)

About the Host of Writers Off the Page

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Thu, 19 Dec 2024 21:00:00 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Randy Boyagoda, Adrienne Clarkson, Saul Bellow, Yuka) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/saul-bellow-wires-not-roots-2pvH30RS EPISODE SUMMARY

Listening to this 1988 conversation between Nobel-prize winning American writer, Saul Bellow, and former Canadian Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson, we possess the advantage of hindsight. In the midst of a US presidential election, Bellow bemoans the vapid discourse between candidates George H.W. Bush and Michael Dukakis—their language constrained by groupthink and moral rigidity and the fact that neither one says anything worth listening to. One almost wants to say aloud: "Bellow, stop! Be careful what you wish for!" After the election we've just had—36 years later—it seems almost quaint to think that US presidential candidates are plagued with the problem of not saying enough. Clarkson delicately puts pressure on Bellow to claim a tribe: not only in terms of his Jewishness, but is he really a misogynist, and what's the deal with the accusations of racism against him? Bellow's defense that these questions feel "McCarthyite" in their demand for loyalty is both incisive and ironically blind to its own implications. Though he stands as one of America's most significant literary voices of the 20th century, Bellow emerges here as a figure suspended between eras, embodying both timeless insight and the beautiful limitations of his age.

***

The audio recording of Saul Bellow in conversation with Adrienne Clarkson was recorded on stage at Harbourfront Reading Series in 1988. It's used with the permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Find out more about all of TIFA’s Canadian and international author events, both virtual, in-person and on-demand, at FestivalOfAuthors.ca. 

Click here to check out Season One of Writers Off the Page where you'll be able to listen to all 26 episodes which feature Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Nikki Giovanni, Grace Paley and many more.

***

SHOW NOTES

Works by Saul Bellow
More Die of Heartbreak (print edition) (ebook)
Dangling Man (print edition) (ebook)
Humboldt's Gift (print edition) (audiobook)
Herzog (print edition) 
There is Simply too much to Think About: Collected Essays (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
Saul Bellow: Letters (print edition) (ebook)

Works about Saul Bellow

Saul Bellow: I was a Jew and an American and a Writer by Gerald Soring (print edition)
Saul Bellow's Heart: a Son's Memoir by Greg Bellow (print edition)

Other Related Books or Materials

The Adventures of Saul Bellow: a video featuring Martin Amis on Bellow's life and career
Seize the Day: a 1986 film adaptation of a 1965 Saul Bellow work
"Saul Bellow is now a stamp" (this link opens an article from Lithub from Feb 2024)

About the Host of Writers Off the Page

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Saul Bellow: Wires not Roots Randy Boyagoda, Adrienne Clarkson, Saul Bellow, Yuka 00:49:18 American Nobel-prize winning author Saul Bellow talks to former Canadian Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson, in a conversation recorded in 1988. American Nobel-prize winning author Saul Bellow talks to former Canadian Governor General, Adrienne Clarkson, in a conversation recorded in 1988. nobel prize for literature, american literature, 1988, adrienne clarkson, jewish writers, saul bellow false full 4 2 027addcd-1fab-453f-803d-af0d616582bb Jamaica Kincaid: Brothers, Mothers and Antigua The best kinds of conversations should meander and detour, trip over delicate areas, double down when a point must be emphatically asserted. After all, the ostensible subject of this 1997 on-stage chat between Dionne Brand and Jamaica Kincaid is the release of Kincaid's memoir, My Brother. But this book gets only a brief nod early on and the subject is largely abandoned for other thoughts and digressions. You can't for a moment fault either of these vital writers for that fact, as important and provocative as Kincaid's book is, for even when planned, a conversation best works when the unexpected comes out, when an anecdote or a memory surfaces that opens up a new avenue for exploration. There is a striking chemistry here between these two very different kinds of writers (though on the surface they seem to share a number of similarities): they agree, they laugh, they riff on each other's thoughts, all to wonderful effect. The chemistry is so strong, one suspects, that any subject they choose to explore would be worth listening to. So pay close attention because another great thing about good conversations: they are fleeting and may only happen once. 

Works by Jamaica Kincaid

My Brother (print edition)
See Now Then (print edition) (ebook)
Annie John (print edition) (ebook)
A Small Place (print edition) (audiobook)
Lucy (print edition) (ebook)
At the Bottom of the River (print edition)

Works by Dione Brand

Salvage: Readings from the Wreck (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
An Autobiography of the Autobiography of Reading (ebook)
Beyond Borders: Arab Feminists Talk About Their Lives - East and West (DVD)

Other Related Books or Materials

  • "An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children" (this link opens an article from The New Yorker from Oct 2024)
  • "Walking Children Through a Garden of Good and Evil"  Visiting Jamaica Kincaid's Vermont Garden  (this link opens an article from The Harvard Gazette from Jul 2024)
  • "This is How You Smile" by Gazelle Mba (this link opens an article in The London Review of Books from Feb 2024)

About the Host of Writers Off the Page

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

 

]]> Wed, 20 Nov 2024 18:00:00 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Randy Boyagoda, Jamaica Kincaid, Dionne Brand) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/jamaica-kincaid-brothers-mothers-and-antigua-DofPBotd The best kinds of conversations should meander and detour, trip over delicate areas, double down when a point must be emphatically asserted. After all, the ostensible subject of this 1997 on-stage chat between Dionne Brand and Jamaica Kincaid is the release of Kincaid's memoir, My Brother. But this book gets only a brief nod early on and the subject is largely abandoned for other thoughts and digressions. You can't for a moment fault either of these vital writers for that fact, as important and provocative as Kincaid's book is, for even when planned, a conversation best works when the unexpected comes out, when an anecdote or a memory surfaces that opens up a new avenue for exploration. There is a striking chemistry here between these two very different kinds of writers (though on the surface they seem to share a number of similarities): they agree, they laugh, they riff on each other's thoughts, all to wonderful effect. The chemistry is so strong, one suspects, that any subject they choose to explore would be worth listening to. So pay close attention because another great thing about good conversations: they are fleeting and may only happen once. 

Works by Jamaica Kincaid

My Brother (print edition)
See Now Then (print edition) (ebook)
Annie John (print edition) (ebook)
A Small Place (print edition) (audiobook)
Lucy (print edition) (ebook)
At the Bottom of the River (print edition)

Works by Dione Brand

Salvage: Readings from the Wreck (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
An Autobiography of the Autobiography of Reading (ebook)
Beyond Borders: Arab Feminists Talk About Their Lives - East and West (DVD)

Other Related Books or Materials

  • "An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children" (this link opens an article from The New Yorker from Oct 2024)
  • "Walking Children Through a Garden of Good and Evil"  Visiting Jamaica Kincaid's Vermont Garden  (this link opens an article from The Harvard Gazette from Jul 2024)
  • "This is How You Smile" by Gazelle Mba (this link opens an article in The London Review of Books from Feb 2024)

About the Host of Writers Off the Page

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

 

]]> Jamaica Kincaid: Brothers, Mothers and Antigua Randy Boyagoda, Jamaica Kincaid, Dionne Brand 00:53:56 Jamaica Kincaid and Dionne Brand in conversation in Toronto as part of the Harbourfront Reading Series (now called Toronto International Festival of Authors) in 1997. Jamaica Kincaid and Dionne Brand in conversation in Toronto as part of the Harbourfront Reading Series (now called Toronto International Festival of Authors) in 1997. antigua, caribbean literature, rosa guy, v.s. naipaul, colonialism, derek walcott false full 3 2 f290ec2e-1168-40eb-a841-46ffd000bad9 Mario Vargas Llosa: Literature Can Help People Live In 1988, when Mario Vargas Llosa sat down on a Toronto stage with Adrienne Clarkson, he hadn't yet won his Nobel Prize for Literature (that came in 2010) so he wasn't yet a "central" figure in the world of writing. In this conversation, he teases out the hazy line between being an artist (who inhabits the world of the imagination), and being a professional politician (who inhabits the world of practical problem-solving) in a way that reflects a very different vision for the role for the artist in a society. In North America, we're more ambivalent about professional practitioners of literature who stray too far into the world of politics, as if political life will sully them and contaminate the artistic vision. But in Vargas Llosa's native Peru (as in many countries), it's expected that writers will be asked to comment on politics, and not doing so undermines the role of the public intellectual. As he so aptly notes, literature "... is something that can help people to live, that can help people to solve problems [...] literature is important, [and]  rooted in life. And this idea is one of the reasons why writers are pushed in Latin America to be involved in political problems and in the public debate." It's a symbol, perhaps, of the marginal role that artists in general (and writers in particular) play in contemporary North American society. And in the background a series of important questions about the role of the artist: What does a society look like when writers are more actively involved in political discussion and even political contests? What does it do to politics when writers are central players? And more importantly, what does it do to literature? 

***

This audio recording of Mario Vargas Llosa in conversation with Adrienne Clarkson was recorded on stage at Harbourfront Reading Series in 1988. It is used with the kind permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Thanks to TIFA for allowing us access to their archives for this series. Find out more about the Festival and its annual festival along with many other activities at FestivalOfAuthors.ca. 

Click here to check out Season One of Writers Off the Page where you'll be able to listen to all 26 episodes which feature Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Nikki Giovanni, Grace Paley and many more.

***

SHOW NOTES

Works by Mario Vargas Llosa (in English)

The Perpetual Orgy: Flaubert and Madame Bovary (print edition)
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (print edition)
Time of the Hero (print edition) (ebook)
Who Killed Palomino Molero (print edition) (ebook)
The Call of the Tribe (print edition)
Sabers and Utopias: Visions of Latin America (print edition)
Conversation in the Cathedral (print edition)

Works by Mario Vargas Llosa (en Español)

La civilización del espectáculo (print edition) (ebook)
La fiesta del chivo (audiobook)
El fuego de la imaginación : libros, escenarios, pantallas y museos (print edition)

Other Related Books or Materials

Mario Vargas Llosa: a Life of Writing (print edition)
Belonging: the Paradox of Citizenship by Adrienne Clarkson (print edition) (ebook)
The Shining Path : Love, Madness, and Revolution in the Andes (print edition)

About the Host of Writers Off the Page

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to  Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Wed, 16 Oct 2024 17:00:00 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Randy Boyagoda, Adrienne Clarkson, Mario Vargas Llosa) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/mario-vargas-llosa-literature-can-help-people-live-l_MDgdGf In 1988, when Mario Vargas Llosa sat down on a Toronto stage with Adrienne Clarkson, he hadn't yet won his Nobel Prize for Literature (that came in 2010) so he wasn't yet a "central" figure in the world of writing. In this conversation, he teases out the hazy line between being an artist (who inhabits the world of the imagination), and being a professional politician (who inhabits the world of practical problem-solving) in a way that reflects a very different vision for the role for the artist in a society. In North America, we're more ambivalent about professional practitioners of literature who stray too far into the world of politics, as if political life will sully them and contaminate the artistic vision. But in Vargas Llosa's native Peru (as in many countries), it's expected that writers will be asked to comment on politics, and not doing so undermines the role of the public intellectual. As he so aptly notes, literature "... is something that can help people to live, that can help people to solve problems [...] literature is important, [and]  rooted in life. And this idea is one of the reasons why writers are pushed in Latin America to be involved in political problems and in the public debate." It's a symbol, perhaps, of the marginal role that artists in general (and writers in particular) play in contemporary North American society. And in the background a series of important questions about the role of the artist: What does a society look like when writers are more actively involved in political discussion and even political contests? What does it do to politics when writers are central players? And more importantly, what does it do to literature? 

***

This audio recording of Mario Vargas Llosa in conversation with Adrienne Clarkson was recorded on stage at Harbourfront Reading Series in 1988. It is used with the kind permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Thanks to TIFA for allowing us access to their archives for this series. Find out more about the Festival and its annual festival along with many other activities at FestivalOfAuthors.ca. 

Click here to check out Season One of Writers Off the Page where you'll be able to listen to all 26 episodes which feature Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Nikki Giovanni, Grace Paley and many more.

***

SHOW NOTES

Works by Mario Vargas Llosa (in English)

The Perpetual Orgy: Flaubert and Madame Bovary (print edition)
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter (print edition)
Time of the Hero (print edition) (ebook)
Who Killed Palomino Molero (print edition) (ebook)
The Call of the Tribe (print edition)
Sabers and Utopias: Visions of Latin America (print edition)
Conversation in the Cathedral (print edition)

Works by Mario Vargas Llosa (en Español)

La civilización del espectáculo (print edition) (ebook)
La fiesta del chivo (audiobook)
El fuego de la imaginación : libros, escenarios, pantallas y museos (print edition)

Other Related Books or Materials

Mario Vargas Llosa: a Life of Writing (print edition)
Belonging: the Paradox of Citizenship by Adrienne Clarkson (print edition) (ebook)
The Shining Path : Love, Madness, and Revolution in the Andes (print edition)

About the Host of Writers Off the Page

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to  Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Mario Vargas Llosa: Literature Can Help People Live Randy Boyagoda, Adrienne Clarkson, Mario Vargas Llosa 00:49:03 What's the role of the artist in the contemporary political life of a country? A conversation between Mario Vargas Llosa and Adrienne Clarkson recorded in 1988 in Toronto, part of the Toronto International Festival of Authors Archives. What's the role of the artist in the contemporary political life of a country? A conversation between Mario Vargas Llosa and Adrienne Clarkson recorded in 1988 in Toronto, part of the Toronto International Festival of Authors Archives. nobel prize for literature, reading, books, peru, toronto, mario vargas llosa, literature, adrienne clarkson, tifa, latin america false full 2 2 a093bed3-00af-4d20-81b6-8c94783ef3ca Hilary Mantel: Experiments in Love This audio recording of Hilary Mantel in conversation with Rosemary Sullivan was recorded on stage at Harbourfront Reading Series in 1997. It is used with the kind permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Thanks to TIFA for allowing us access to their archives for this series. Find out more about the Festival and its annual festival along with many other activities at FestivalOfAuthors.ca.

Click here check out Season One of Writers Off the Page where you'll be able to listen to all 26 episodes featuring some of the 20th century's most beloved writers, including Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Nikki Giovanni, Grace Paley and more.

Works by Hilary Mantel in Toronto Public Library's collection:

An Experiment in Love (print edition) (ebook)
Wolf Hall (Wolf Hall Trilogy, Book One) (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
Bring Up the Bodies (Wolf Hall Trilogy, Book Two) (print edition, ebook, audiobook) 
The Mirror and the Light (Wolf Hall Trilogy, Book Three) (print edition) ebook) (audiobook)
A Change of Climate (print edition) (ebook)
Vacant Possession (print edition) (ebook)
A Place of Greater Safety (print edition) (ebook)
Eight Months on Ghazzah Street (print edition)

Other Related Books or Materials in our collections:

The Betrayal of Anne Frank by Rosemary Sullivan (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
Stalin's Daughter : the Extraordinary and Tumultuous life of Svetlana Alliluyeva by Rosemary Sullivan
(print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
Wolf Hall - Masterpiece Theatre's 2015 movie adaptation (DVD)

About the Host

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Wed, 18 Sep 2024 16:00:00 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Randy Boyagoda, Hilary Mantel, Rosemary Sullivan) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/hilary-mantel-experiments-in-love-Bmpu1EP7 This audio recording of Hilary Mantel in conversation with Rosemary Sullivan was recorded on stage at Harbourfront Reading Series in 1997. It is used with the kind permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Thanks to TIFA for allowing us access to their archives for this series. Find out more about the Festival and its annual festival along with many other activities at FestivalOfAuthors.ca.

Click here check out Season One of Writers Off the Page where you'll be able to listen to all 26 episodes featuring some of the 20th century's most beloved writers, including Umberto Eco, Susan Sontag, Nikki Giovanni, Grace Paley and more.

Works by Hilary Mantel in Toronto Public Library's collection:

An Experiment in Love (print edition) (ebook)
Wolf Hall (Wolf Hall Trilogy, Book One) (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
Bring Up the Bodies (Wolf Hall Trilogy, Book Two) (print edition, ebook, audiobook) 
The Mirror and the Light (Wolf Hall Trilogy, Book Three) (print edition) ebook) (audiobook)
A Change of Climate (print edition) (ebook)
Vacant Possession (print edition) (ebook)
A Place of Greater Safety (print edition) (ebook)
Eight Months on Ghazzah Street (print edition)

Other Related Books or Materials in our collections:

The Betrayal of Anne Frank by Rosemary Sullivan (print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
Stalin's Daughter : the Extraordinary and Tumultuous life of Svetlana Alliluyeva by Rosemary Sullivan
(print edition) (ebook) (audiobook)
Wolf Hall - Masterpiece Theatre's 2015 movie adaptation (DVD)

About the Host

Randy Boyagoda is a novelist and professor of English at the University of Toronto, where he serves as advisor on civil discourse and vice-dean undergraduate, in the Faculty of Arts and Science. He has written seven books, including four novels. His work has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize and named a Globe and Mail Best Book of the Year and New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice selection. He regularly contributes essays, opinions and reviews to publications including the Atlantic, the New York Times, the Financial Times of London, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Globe and Mail, and appears frequently on CBC Radio. A former president of PEN Canada, Boyagoda lives in Toronto with his wife and their four daughters.

Music is by Yuka

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Hilary Mantel: Experiments in Love Randy Boyagoda, Hilary Mantel, Rosemary Sullivan 00:48:06 Hilary Mantel's sudden death in 2022 at the age of 70 shocked the literary world and fans of her Wolf Hall Trilogy, which was a publishing phenomenon. In this wide-ranging conversation recorded in Toronto in 1997, Mantel's best-known works were yet to come and as Randy Boyagoda notes in the introduction, you as a listener wish you could reach in and tell her that her peak as a writer still lay in the future. With an excellent host at the helm, Canadian writer Rosemary Sullivan, this lovely conversation gives a real sense of what shaped Hilary Mantel's approach to writing, her unique and complex characters and the thoughtful ways she blends research with good old-fashioned storytelling. Hilary Mantel's sudden death in 2022 at the age of 70 shocked the literary world and fans of her Wolf Hall Trilogy, which was a publishing phenomenon. In this wide-ranging conversation recorded in Toronto in 1997, Mantel's best-known works were yet to come and as Randy Boyagoda notes in the introduction, you as a listener wish you could reach in and tell her that her peak as a writer still lay in the future. With an excellent host at the helm, Canadian writer Rosemary Sullivan, this lovely conversation gives a real sense of what shaped Hilary Mantel's approach to writing, her unique and complex characters and the thoughtful ways she blends research with good old-fashioned storytelling. reading, rosemary sullivan, literary festivals, books, harbourfront, hilary mantel, toronto, literature, randy boyagoda, oliver cromwell false full 1 2 2ae786b7-3056-4ac7-b869-4b08a2259efb Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose Works by Umberto Eco

The Name of the Rose

Foucault’s Pendulum

The Prague Cemetery

On the Shoulders of Giants

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Signs and Secrets: the Worlds of Umberto Eco (2013 documentary)

Always Narrating: The Making and Unmaking of Umberto Eco (link opens a 2020 Los Angeles Review of Book article)

The Man Who Loved Books: Interview with Umberto Eco (link opens a 2020 Counterpunch article)

Umberto Eco, The Art of Fiction, No. 197 (link opens a 2008 Paris Review article)

Umberto Eco, 84, Best-selling Academic Who Navigated Two Words (link opens a 2016 New York Times obituary)

__

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

]]> Thu, 15 Oct 2020 16:41:48 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/umberto-eco-the-name-of-the-rose-U1NLu1mC Works by Umberto Eco

The Name of the Rose

Foucault’s Pendulum

The Prague Cemetery

On the Shoulders of Giants

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Signs and Secrets: the Worlds of Umberto Eco (2013 documentary)

Always Narrating: The Making and Unmaking of Umberto Eco (link opens a 2020 Los Angeles Review of Book article)

The Man Who Loved Books: Interview with Umberto Eco (link opens a 2020 Counterpunch article)

Umberto Eco, The Art of Fiction, No. 197 (link opens a 2008 Paris Review article)

Umberto Eco, 84, Best-selling Academic Who Navigated Two Words (link opens a 2016 New York Times obituary)

__

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

]]> Umberto Eco: The Name of the Rose Toronto Public Library 00:36:26 There is a predictable story arc that occurs after an author dies young: their work, their reputation gets renewed, debates rage about the legacy that this tragic figure will leave behind. Think of David Foster Wallace, for example. Love his work or hate it, his massive tomes are still written about, debated, dialogued upon as if we can gain insight into who he was and find portents in his words of his tragic fate to come. But for writers who have long and consistently productive literary output, authors who die wizened and aged, that story often unfolds in quite a different way vis à vis that authors’ reputation: they often fall off the radar altogether. Their works sit unread on shelves; they go out of print. They are passé. Who reads Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) these days or Derek Walcott (1930-2017)? VS Naipaul (1932-2018)? Carol Shields (1935-2003)? There are exceptions: writers who have a strong following in academia are often exempt from this generality as are authors whose work seems prescient (though it’s usually simply coincidental). And, significantly, it’s often not a permanent condition - inevitably someone in the future will “rediscover” the oeuvre and a whole new generation of readers will discover it. Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) is gaining new readers and new critical attention and many of her novels an entire new line of handsome editions by Penguin Random House. Writers like Umberto Eco seem to be included in the list of exceptions. Four years after his death at 84, there is still a plethora of attention paid to his work in both scholarly and popular media. A recent remake of his 1983 novel, The Name of the Rose (from which this recording is taken), was made into a six-part miniseries starring John Turturro, and was both a commercial and critical hit in Italy and abroad. Partly this is due to the sheer talent that Eco had in being both a serious scholar of semiotics but also a commercial success, a combination that is quite rare. Eco’s vaguely roguish and impish personality certainly helped, a personality that comes out in this reading recorded in Toronto nearly 40 years ago. He was one of those writers who was able to bridge popular culture and the ivy-entwined seriousness of academia without one side of his career detracting from the other. Another part of it seems that Eco simply didn’t take himself too seriously, and that’s a recipe for success and longevity in just about any field. This audio recording of Umberto Eco, recorded on stage at Harbourfront Reading Series in 1983, is used with the kind permission of La nave di Teseo and the Estate of Umberto Eco. It’s also used with the permission of Toronto International Festival of Authors which runs this year from Oct 22 to Nov 1. Check the full festival schedule out at festivalofauthors.ca. There is a predictable story arc that occurs after an author dies young: their work, their reputation gets renewed, debates rage about the legacy that this tragic figure will leave behind. Think of David Foster Wallace, for example. Love his work or hate it, his massive tomes are still written about, debated, dialogued upon as if we can gain insight into who he was and find portents in his words of his tragic fate to come. But for writers who have long and consistently productive literary output, authors who die wizened and aged, that story often unfolds in quite a different way vis à vis that authors’ reputation: they often fall off the radar altogether. Their works sit unread on shelves; they go out of print. They are passé. Who reads Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004) these days or Derek Walcott (1930-2017)? VS Naipaul (1932-2018)? Carol Shields (1935-2003)? There are exceptions: writers who have a strong following in academia are often exempt from this generality as are authors whose work seems prescient (though it’s usually simply coincidental). And, significantly, it’s often not a permanent condition - inevitably someone in the future will “rediscover” the oeuvre and a whole new generation of readers will discover it. Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) is gaining new readers and new critical attention and many of her novels an entire new line of handsome editions by Penguin Random House. Writers like Umberto Eco seem to be included in the list of exceptions. Four years after his death at 84, there is still a plethora of attention paid to his work in both scholarly and popular media. A recent remake of his 1983 novel, The Name of the Rose (from which this recording is taken), was made into a six-part miniseries starring John Turturro, and was both a commercial and critical hit in Italy and abroad. Partly this is due to the sheer talent that Eco had in being both a serious scholar of semiotics but also a commercial success, a combination that is quite rare. Eco’s vaguely roguish and impish personality certainly helped, a personality that comes out in this reading recorded in Toronto nearly 40 years ago. He was one of those writers who was able to bridge popular culture and the ivy-entwined seriousness of academia without one side of his career detracting from the other. Another part of it seems that Eco simply didn’t take himself too seriously, and that’s a recipe for success and longevity in just about any field. This audio recording of Umberto Eco, recorded on stage at Harbourfront Reading Series in 1983, is used with the kind permission of La nave di Teseo and the Estate of Umberto Eco. It’s also used with the permission of Toronto International Festival of Authors which runs this year from Oct 22 to Nov 1. Check the full festival schedule out at festivalofauthors.ca. umberto eco, writers, tpl, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa false full 25 1 4223ae8a-225e-4741-aecc-dd4af5f540ce Austin Clarke: Sometimes, A Motherless Child Works by Austin Clarke

In This City

They Never Told Me and Other Stories

The Polished Hoe

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Odetta’s 1960 recording of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” (link opens a Youtube video)

Austin Clarke’s Harlem (link opens part of a CBC audio documentary produced by Austin Clarke in 1963 about the Civil Rights Movement)

Why Literary Critics Failed to Define and Understand Austin Clarke (link opens a National Post article from 2016)

Austin Clarke Quotes (link opens a Twitter account devoted to the quotes and other aspects of Clarke’s work)

__

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Thu, 24 Sep 2020 13:00:09 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/austin-clarke-sometimes-a-motherless-child-_KminJLZ Works by Austin Clarke

In This City

They Never Told Me and Other Stories

The Polished Hoe

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Odetta’s 1960 recording of “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child” (link opens a Youtube video)

Austin Clarke’s Harlem (link opens part of a CBC audio documentary produced by Austin Clarke in 1963 about the Civil Rights Movement)

Why Literary Critics Failed to Define and Understand Austin Clarke (link opens a National Post article from 2016)

Austin Clarke Quotes (link opens a Twitter account devoted to the quotes and other aspects of Clarke’s work)

__

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Austin Clarke: Sometimes, A Motherless Child Toronto Public Library 00:42:51 Austin Clarke was a writer who was long fascinated by how we are both nurtured by and damaged by the communities that surround us - and most particularly how Caribbean and West Indian communities in mid-20th century Toronto both nurtured and damaged young Black men. In this reading, recorded on stage at the Harbourfront Reading Series in 1991, Clarke reads the final story from his collection, In This City, which presents the lives of Torontonians as they love, fight, explore, fear, intimidate, feel dispossessed, disobey and search for unpredictable moments of grace both within the confines of their communities but also in the cold and sometimes violent communities that lay beyond walls. The title of this story references a well-known Negro Spiritual, Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, which laments the pain of life from a point of view (the slave) that was almost unheard of in the dominant culture which inspired it. The song later became significant as one of the Civil Rights Movement’s most moving anthems. Clarke’s retelling slyly reverses the roles and instead of a motherless child, a mother laments the loss of her son. And it can’t be ignored here that so many times when we see the way the poor are forced to interact with brutal figures of authority, violence is the response. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The audio for this episode is from In This City by Austin Clarke. Copyright © 1991 by Austin Clarke. Used with the permission of the Estate of Austin Clarke. It is also used with the permission of the Toronto International Writers Festival. Austin Clarke was a writer who was long fascinated by how we are both nurtured by and damaged by the communities that surround us - and most particularly how Caribbean and West Indian communities in mid-20th century Toronto both nurtured and damaged young Black men. In this reading, recorded on stage at the Harbourfront Reading Series in 1991, Clarke reads the final story from his collection, In This City, which presents the lives of Torontonians as they love, fight, explore, fear, intimidate, feel dispossessed, disobey and search for unpredictable moments of grace both within the confines of their communities but also in the cold and sometimes violent communities that lay beyond walls. The title of this story references a well-known Negro Spiritual, Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child, which laments the pain of life from a point of view (the slave) that was almost unheard of in the dominant culture which inspired it. The song later became significant as one of the Civil Rights Movement’s most moving anthems. Clarke’s retelling slyly reverses the roles and instead of a motherless child, a mother laments the loss of her son. And it can’t be ignored here that so many times when we see the way the poor are forced to interact with brutal figures of authority, violence is the response. The more things change, the more they stay the same. The audio for this episode is from In This City by Austin Clarke. Copyright © 1991 by Austin Clarke. Used with the permission of the Estate of Austin Clarke. It is also used with the permission of the Toronto International Writers Festival. writers, tpl, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, austin clarke, tifa true full 24 1 24f50327-4722-491a-9b02-74e9f8a97285 Doris Lessing: Homage to the New Man Works by Doris Lessing

The Golden Notebook

Stories by Doris Lessing

The Grandmothers: Four Short Novels

The Grass is Singing (ebook)

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Doris Lessing: A Biography by Carole Klein

Doris Lessing: First Visit to Toronto (link opens a 1984 photo by Reg Innell, courtesy of Toronto Star Archives at Toronto Public Library)

Doris Lessing, Author Who Swept Aside Convention (link opens New York Times obituary from November 2013

Doris Lessing, The Art of Fiction (link opens Paris Review interview from 1988)

___

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Thu, 10 Sep 2020 15:36:04 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/doris-lessing-homage-to-the-new-man-76b44d0T Works by Doris Lessing

The Golden Notebook

Stories by Doris Lessing

The Grandmothers: Four Short Novels

The Grass is Singing (ebook)

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Doris Lessing: A Biography by Carole Klein

Doris Lessing: First Visit to Toronto (link opens a 1984 photo by Reg Innell, courtesy of Toronto Star Archives at Toronto Public Library)

Doris Lessing, Author Who Swept Aside Convention (link opens New York Times obituary from November 2013

Doris Lessing, The Art of Fiction (link opens Paris Review interview from 1988)

___

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Doris Lessing: Homage to the New Man Toronto Public Library 00:41:06 It’s easy to forget when one sees how ubiquitous the “author reading” has become that there was a time when this custom was practically unheard of. Writers are, after all, often introverted, timid - even misanthropic - and generally tasked with sitting alone in a room, mired in their own thoughts and pulling words out of thin air which they clack down onto screens and then woops no that won’t do...erase that erase erase. Do it again. Writers, at least in our often romantic notion of them, are watchers, not do-ers. They linger in the backgrounds and take notes. They brood. Maybe, though, this very notion is one that is fast becoming anachronistic. For in today’s market-driven go-go-go warp speed world, authors are expected to write a book a year, Tweet witty quips regularly to their tens of thousands of followers, snap brilliant Instagram pics with their lattes and labradors, do the talk show circuit, serve on prize juries, write newspaper columns (“The Death of the Novel”), fly on planes from festival to library to festival and perform their own work on stages to thunderous applause, sign books for hours, listen patiently as readers gush, talk with authority on TV or a podcast episode about the state of this or that or the other- and then innovate, advocate, pontificate. It’s a wonder writers write at all. This long and windy diatribe to simply point out one brief and lovely moment when Doris Lessing announces from the stage that this reading, this moment from a Harbourfront event in Toronto in 1984, is her first reading. Ever. And when you, the listener, realize that Doris Lessing, though far from being at the end of her career (she was already in her mid-60s by this point), for just a moment you get a glimpse into that other former world of the writer as loner, as someone charged with quietly finding the words and writing them out, not broadcasting them to the world. There is a sweetness to imagining her there on that stage, wondering how she got there, blinking into the lights, dry-throated, looking out into that room of eager faces waiting for her to speak, to be more than a mere writer. And it’s that world, that old world where writers wrote quietly in rooms (and drank and scrapped and raged - some things never change) and you can hear hints of that old world in her voice when she reads these two beautiful stories about young girls on the cusp of adulthood. That’s the Doris Lessing we hear as we “look” into that world from before, a world she is about to leave behind, stepping up to that microphone for the first time, clearing her throat and letting go of the past. *** This audio recording of Doris Lessing, recorded on stage at Harbourfront Reading Series in 1984, is used with the kind permission of The Doris Lessing Literary Will Trust as well as the Toronto International Festival of Authors. And, as always, thanks to TIFA, the Toronto International Festival of Authors, for allowing us access to their archives. Find out more at FestivalOfAuthors.ca. It’s easy to forget when one sees how ubiquitous the “author reading” has become that there was a time when this custom was practically unheard of. Writers are, after all, often introverted, timid - even misanthropic - and generally tasked with sitting alone in a room, mired in their own thoughts and pulling words out of thin air which they clack down onto screens and then woops no that won’t do...erase that erase erase. Do it again. Writers, at least in our often romantic notion of them, are watchers, not do-ers. They linger in the backgrounds and take notes. They brood. Maybe, though, this very notion is one that is fast becoming anachronistic. For in today’s market-driven go-go-go warp speed world, authors are expected to write a book a year, Tweet witty quips regularly to their tens of thousands of followers, snap brilliant Instagram pics with their lattes and labradors, do the talk show circuit, serve on prize juries, write newspaper columns (“The Death of the Novel”), fly on planes from festival to library to festival and perform their own work on stages to thunderous applause, sign books for hours, listen patiently as readers gush, talk with authority on TV or a podcast episode about the state of this or that or the other- and then innovate, advocate, pontificate. It’s a wonder writers write at all. This long and windy diatribe to simply point out one brief and lovely moment when Doris Lessing announces from the stage that this reading, this moment from a Harbourfront event in Toronto in 1984, is her first reading. Ever. And when you, the listener, realize that Doris Lessing, though far from being at the end of her career (she was already in her mid-60s by this point), for just a moment you get a glimpse into that other former world of the writer as loner, as someone charged with quietly finding the words and writing them out, not broadcasting them to the world. There is a sweetness to imagining her there on that stage, wondering how she got there, blinking into the lights, dry-throated, looking out into that room of eager faces waiting for her to speak, to be more than a mere writer. And it’s that world, that old world where writers wrote quietly in rooms (and drank and scrapped and raged - some things never change) and you can hear hints of that old world in her voice when she reads these two beautiful stories about young girls on the cusp of adulthood. That’s the Doris Lessing we hear as we “look” into that world from before, a world she is about to leave behind, stepping up to that microphone for the first time, clearing her throat and letting go of the past. *** This audio recording of Doris Lessing, recorded on stage at Harbourfront Reading Series in 1984, is used with the kind permission of The Doris Lessing Literary Will Trust as well as the Toronto International Festival of Authors. And, as always, thanks to TIFA, the Toronto International Festival of Authors, for allowing us access to their archives. Find out more at FestivalOfAuthors.ca. doris lessing, writers, tpl, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa false full 23 1 4d96a0d4-c5de-44b3-988f-75b1a2ae6b16 Eduardo Galeano: Memory of Fire Works by Eduardo Galeano

Memory of Fire Volume One: Genesis

Memory of Fire Volume Two: Faces and Masks

Memory of Fire Volume Three: Century of the Wind

Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History 

Soccer in Sun and Shadow

Las venas abiertas de américa latina (ebook)

 

Other Related Books or Materials

The Pan American: The World of Eduardo Galeano (link opens an August 2018 article from The Nation)

Women of the Mine - Les Mujeres de la mina - 2006 Film

My Hero: Eduardo Galeano by Tariq Ali (link opens an April 2015 article from The Guardian)

Eduardo Galeano (photo) "His vivid survey of the Latin American past is an impressive achievement." (link opens a photograph by Reg Innell in 1988 from TPL’s Special Collections, part of the Toronto Star Archives)

___

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Thu, 27 Aug 2020 13:00:21 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/eduardo-galeano-memory-of-fire-0a33OD6r Works by Eduardo Galeano

Memory of Fire Volume One: Genesis

Memory of Fire Volume Two: Faces and Masks

Memory of Fire Volume Three: Century of the Wind

Children of the Days: A Calendar of Human History 

Soccer in Sun and Shadow

Las venas abiertas de américa latina (ebook)

 

Other Related Books or Materials

The Pan American: The World of Eduardo Galeano (link opens an August 2018 article from The Nation)

Women of the Mine - Les Mujeres de la mina - 2006 Film

My Hero: Eduardo Galeano by Tariq Ali (link opens an April 2015 article from The Guardian)

Eduardo Galeano (photo) "His vivid survey of the Latin American past is an impressive achievement." (link opens a photograph by Reg Innell in 1988 from TPL’s Special Collections, part of the Toronto Star Archives)

___

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Eduardo Galeano: Memory of Fire Toronto Public Library 00:24:11 Recorded live on stage in Toronto in 1988, Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano - a wholly unique writer that could only have come out of leftist Latin America in the middle part of the 20th century - shows us in this reading from his trilogy, Memory of Fire, snippets of the lives that he spent his entire career spotlighting. Whether he’s showing us stories of the lives of the poor, the downtrodden, the uneducated, mestizos, the descendant of slaves or slaves themselves, Galeano showed how the “big men of history” made their names and carved out countries from the green verdant jungles of the Amazon but always on the backs of others and with consequences that are still present to this day. The audio recording of Eduardo Galeano, recorded on stage at the Harbourfront Reading Series in 1988, is used with the permission of the Estate of Eduardo Galeano c/o Dr. Eduardo de Freitas and Susan Bergholz Literary Services, New York City and Lamy, NM. All rights reserved. The recording is also used by permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Find out more at festivalofauthors.ca. Recorded live on stage in Toronto in 1988, Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano - a wholly unique writer that could only have come out of leftist Latin America in the middle part of the 20th century - shows us in this reading from his trilogy, Memory of Fire, snippets of the lives that he spent his entire career spotlighting. Whether he’s showing us stories of the lives of the poor, the downtrodden, the uneducated, mestizos, the descendant of slaves or slaves themselves, Galeano showed how the “big men of history” made their names and carved out countries from the green verdant jungles of the Amazon but always on the backs of others and with consequences that are still present to this day. The audio recording of Eduardo Galeano, recorded on stage at the Harbourfront Reading Series in 1988, is used with the permission of the Estate of Eduardo Galeano c/o Dr. Eduardo de Freitas and Susan Bergholz Literary Services, New York City and Lamy, NM. All rights reserved. The recording is also used by permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Find out more at festivalofauthors.ca. writers, tpl, eduardo galeano, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa false full 22 1 cbde1b83-14e4-4ceb-a5ee-6d7ab474ca77 Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus Works by Angela Carter

Nights at the Circus

The Bloody Chamber, Wise Children, Fireworks

Writers Talk: Angela Carter with Lisa Appignanesi (evideo)

The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (ebook)

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Angela Carter: A Literary Life by Sarah Gamble

Nights at the Circus is Feminist... (link opens an article from The Guardian from Feb 2017)

Taking Flight with Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus  (link opens a piece from Tor.com from Apr 2017)

Angela Carter: a staggering command of language (link opens TPL Special Collections page of the Toronto Star Archives featuring a 1988 photo of Carter by John Mahler)

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

]]> Thu, 13 Aug 2020 13:00:11 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/angela-carter-nights-at-the-circus-oj5NXBFh Works by Angela Carter

Nights at the Circus

The Bloody Chamber, Wise Children, Fireworks

Writers Talk: Angela Carter with Lisa Appignanesi (evideo)

The Infernal Desire Machines of Doctor Hoffman (ebook)

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Angela Carter: A Literary Life by Sarah Gamble

Nights at the Circus is Feminist... (link opens an article from The Guardian from Feb 2017)

Taking Flight with Angela Carter’s Nights at the Circus  (link opens a piece from Tor.com from Apr 2017)

Angela Carter: a staggering command of language (link opens TPL Special Collections page of the Toronto Star Archives featuring a 1988 photo of Carter by John Mahler)

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

]]> Angela Carter: Nights at the Circus Toronto Public Library 00:33:54 Salman Rushdie tells a story about a reading he was asked to do for a UK book festival early in his career. On the ticket with Rushdie was another young British writer, Angela Carter who, when taking the stage, looked out into a sparsely attended event and spontaneously invited the entire group of attendees to continue the event across the road at the Pub. That sense of Carter -- inventive, flexible but ever practical -- comes out in this reading, recorded in Toronto in 1986, and demonstrates her powerful voice, complex use of language, and her unique humour and creativity. Her early death at age 51 was a major loss for English-language writing. The audio recording used in this episode from Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter is published by Chatto & Windus, 1984. Copyright © The Estate of Angela Carter. Reproduced by permission of the Estate c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN. Additionally, the audio is used with permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Salman Rushdie tells a story about a reading he was asked to do for a UK book festival early in his career. On the ticket with Rushdie was another young British writer, Angela Carter who, when taking the stage, looked out into a sparsely attended event and spontaneously invited the entire group of attendees to continue the event across the road at the Pub. That sense of Carter -- inventive, flexible but ever practical -- comes out in this reading, recorded in Toronto in 1986, and demonstrates her powerful voice, complex use of language, and her unique humour and creativity. Her early death at age 51 was a major loss for English-language writing. The audio recording used in this episode from Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter is published by Chatto & Windus, 1984. Copyright © The Estate of Angela Carter. Reproduced by permission of the Estate c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd., 20 Powis Mews, London W11 1JN. Additionally, the audio is used with permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. writers, tpl, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, angela carter, tifa false full 21 1 94c1439c-c663-4dc6-a8c6-fb4a9bbc8565 Luisa Valenzuela: Love of Animals Works by Luisa Valenzuela

The Lizard’s Tail (print book)

The Wanderer by Luisa Valenzuela, translated by Marguerite Feitlowitz (link opens a short story from The Brooklyn Rail's InTranslation)

He Who Searches Latin American Literature Series (link opens Dalkey Archive Press site with two translated works - print on demand)


Collections/Anthologies Containing Stories from Luisa Valenzuela

Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories From Latin America and the United States (print book)

Brevity by David Galef 

The Will to Heal: Psychological Recovery in the Novels of Latina Writers (print book)


 

Other Related Books or Materials

Luisa Valenzuela, The Art of Fiction No. 170 (link opens an article from The Paris Review from 2001)

Luisa Valenzuela on Writing, Power and Gender (link opens an article from the Cervantes Virtual Library

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

]]> Thu, 30 Jul 2020 18:20:00 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/luisa-valenzuela-love-of-animals-WUl_vFMy Works by Luisa Valenzuela

The Lizard’s Tail (print book)

The Wanderer by Luisa Valenzuela, translated by Marguerite Feitlowitz (link opens a short story from The Brooklyn Rail's InTranslation)

He Who Searches Latin American Literature Series (link opens Dalkey Archive Press site with two translated works - print on demand)


Collections/Anthologies Containing Stories from Luisa Valenzuela

Sudden Fiction Latino: Short-Short Stories From Latin America and the United States (print book)

Brevity by David Galef 

The Will to Heal: Psychological Recovery in the Novels of Latina Writers (print book)


 

Other Related Books or Materials

Luisa Valenzuela, The Art of Fiction No. 170 (link opens an article from The Paris Review from 2001)

Luisa Valenzuela on Writing, Power and Gender (link opens an article from the Cervantes Virtual Library

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

]]> Luisa Valenzuela: Love of Animals Toronto Public Library 00:18:19 Recorded at Toronto’s Harbourfront Reading Series in 1979, Argentine author, Luisa Valenzuela recruits Founding Artistic Director of the Harbourfront Reading Series, Greg Gatenby, to be her reading partner in a complex story of two cars as they race through the streets of Buenos Aires. In a style that is like no other writer of her generation or since, Valenzuela portrays the cold determination of the hunter and the rising fear of the hunted. Written at the height of the Dirty War, Valenzuela herself was exiled for a number of years though she made the politics and censorship of her country a central theme in much of her writing from this era. Later in this episode, Valenzuela reads a darkly humorous story about the plethora of shoes which are found on the streets, so many that even beggars of the city are “The Best Shod” destitute people in the world. The secret is simple if horrific: they are the shoes of the Disappeared. This recording was used with the kind permission of the author. This episode content was also made with the permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA). Recorded at Toronto’s Harbourfront Reading Series in 1979, Argentine author, Luisa Valenzuela recruits Founding Artistic Director of the Harbourfront Reading Series, Greg Gatenby, to be her reading partner in a complex story of two cars as they race through the streets of Buenos Aires. In a style that is like no other writer of her generation or since, Valenzuela portrays the cold determination of the hunter and the rising fear of the hunted. Written at the height of the Dirty War, Valenzuela herself was exiled for a number of years though she made the politics and censorship of her country a central theme in much of her writing from this era. Later in this episode, Valenzuela reads a darkly humorous story about the plethora of shoes which are found on the streets, so many that even beggars of the city are “The Best Shod” destitute people in the world. The secret is simple if horrific: they are the shoes of the Disappeared. This recording was used with the kind permission of the author. This episode content was also made with the permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA). writers, tpl, luisa valenzuela, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa true full 20 1 323a0ed6-df9b-4b3c-b77d-063e92a997cf Richard Wagamese: A Quality of Light Works by Richard Wagamese

A Quality of Light (ebook)

One Drum: Stories and Ceremonies for a Planet (all formats)

One Drum: Stories and Ceremonies for a Planet (audiobook)

Starlight (ebook)

Indian Horse
 

Other Related Books or Materials

Honouring Richard Wagamese (link opens a 2017 article from Indian Horse)

Richard Wagamese’s final novel ‘a captivating and ultimately uplifting read.’ (link opens a 2018 article from Toronto Star)

Richard Wagamese, Whose Writing Explored his Ojibwe Heritage, Dies at 61 (link opens a 2017 New York Times obituary)

Three ‘Meditations' from Richard Wagamese (link opens a 2016 article from The Tyee)

___

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Thu, 16 Jul 2020 21:40:39 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/richard-wagamese-a-quality-of-light-1oVB_FyY Works by Richard Wagamese

A Quality of Light (ebook)

One Drum: Stories and Ceremonies for a Planet (all formats)

One Drum: Stories and Ceremonies for a Planet (audiobook)

Starlight (ebook)

Indian Horse
 

Other Related Books or Materials

Honouring Richard Wagamese (link opens a 2017 article from Indian Horse)

Richard Wagamese’s final novel ‘a captivating and ultimately uplifting read.’ (link opens a 2018 article from Toronto Star)

Richard Wagamese, Whose Writing Explored his Ojibwe Heritage, Dies at 61 (link opens a 2017 New York Times obituary)

Three ‘Meditations' from Richard Wagamese (link opens a 2016 article from The Tyee)

___

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Richard Wagamese: A Quality of Light Toronto Public Library 00:27:27 This recording, made in Toronto in 1996, was the first public reading Richard Wagamese ever did. Done on the publication of his 2nd novel, A Quality of Light, Wagamese references in his opening comments the struggles he faced as an Indigenous artist in a world often hostile to these voices. From his early life and early displacement as a boy to his early writing career at the Calgary Herald, among other publications, Wagamese's journey eventually led him to become one of Canada’s most popular and beloved Indigenous writers. This reading from his 1997 novel presents a moving and painful story that demonstrates the vital force that friendship and compassion have on the very arc of a life lived. Wagamese’s reading was recorded as part of Toronto’s International Readings at Harbourfront Series (now called TIFA) and is used with the kind permission of the Estate of Richard Wagamese. A Quality of Light was published by Doubleday Canada in 1997. This episode content is also made possible with the permission of Toronto International Festival of Authors. This recording, made in Toronto in 1996, was the first public reading Richard Wagamese ever did. Done on the publication of his 2nd novel, A Quality of Light, Wagamese references in his opening comments the struggles he faced as an Indigenous artist in a world often hostile to these voices. From his early life and early displacement as a boy to his early writing career at the Calgary Herald, among other publications, Wagamese's journey eventually led him to become one of Canada’s most popular and beloved Indigenous writers. This reading from his 1997 novel presents a moving and painful story that demonstrates the vital force that friendship and compassion have on the very arc of a life lived. Wagamese’s reading was recorded as part of Toronto’s International Readings at Harbourfront Series (now called TIFA) and is used with the kind permission of the Estate of Richard Wagamese. A Quality of Light was published by Doubleday Canada in 1997. This episode content is also made possible with the permission of Toronto International Festival of Authors. writers, tpl, reading, richard wagamese, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa false full 19 1 eb7955bf-3ff6-4c4b-9049-c77469f5318d John Irving: A Prayer for Owen Meany Works by John Irving

A Prayer for Owen Meany

The World According to Garp (book in various formats)

The World According to Gary (1982 film starring Robin Williams, Glenn Close and John Lithgow)

Avenue of Mysteries

The Cider House Rules

Last Night in Twisted River


Other Related Books or Materials

13 Facts about A Prayer for Owen Meany (link opens an article from Mental Floss from Apr 2015)

John Irving in 1990 (link opens TPL Special Collections page of the Toronto Star Archives featuring a 1990 photo of Irving by Doug Griffin)

Episode 162: A Prayer for Owen Meany (link opens a podcast episode by Overdue Podcast)

John Irving: A Prayer for Owen Meany (link opens a podcast episode by BBC Radio 4 Bookclub)

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Thu, 2 Jul 2020 21:21:25 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/john-irving-a-prayer-for-owen-meany-y94Gme2B Works by John Irving

A Prayer for Owen Meany

The World According to Garp (book in various formats)

The World According to Gary (1982 film starring Robin Williams, Glenn Close and John Lithgow)

Avenue of Mysteries

The Cider House Rules

Last Night in Twisted River


Other Related Books or Materials

13 Facts about A Prayer for Owen Meany (link opens an article from Mental Floss from Apr 2015)

John Irving in 1990 (link opens TPL Special Collections page of the Toronto Star Archives featuring a 1990 photo of Irving by Doug Griffin)

Episode 162: A Prayer for Owen Meany (link opens a podcast episode by Overdue Podcast)

John Irving: A Prayer for Owen Meany (link opens a podcast episode by BBC Radio 4 Bookclub)

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> John Irving: A Prayer for Owen Meany Toronto Public Library 00:37:48 In an early draft of one of Irving’s most beloved novels, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Irving’s reading makes Owen Meany come alive in a way that his reader may never have experienced before. Whether a long-time fan of Irving or Owen Meany or new to the novel, this reading captures why Irving is such an entertaining reader but also such a vital and natural storyteller. Irving’s reading was recorded in 1986 as part of Toronto’s International Readings at Harbourfront Series (now called TIFA) and is used with the kind permission of John Irving and the Turnbull Agency. It’s also made possible with the permission of Toronto International Festival of Authors. In an early draft of one of Irving’s most beloved novels, A Prayer for Owen Meany, Irving’s reading makes Owen Meany come alive in a way that his reader may never have experienced before. Whether a long-time fan of Irving or Owen Meany or new to the novel, this reading captures why Irving is such an entertaining reader but also such a vital and natural storyteller. Irving’s reading was recorded in 1986 as part of Toronto’s International Readings at Harbourfront Series (now called TIFA) and is used with the kind permission of John Irving and the Turnbull Agency. It’s also made possible with the permission of Toronto International Festival of Authors. writers, tpl, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, john irving, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa true full 18 1 b8ca4701-bd67-4f74-b09d-d590776a8633 Bruce Chatwin: The Songlines Note: given the current temporary closure of TPL due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made our best efforts to offer suggestions below for materials which are part our online collections (indicated) and available at home to anyone with a current Toronto Library card. 

Read: Why are wait times on ebooks or audiobooks sometimes so long?

 

Works by Bruce Chatwin

The Songlines

In Patagonia

Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings, 1969-1989 (ebook)

On the Black Hill (ebook)

Utz (ebook)


Books About Bruce Chatwin

Bruce Chatwin by Nicholas Shakespeare

Anywhere Out of the World: the Work of Bruce Chatwin by Jonathan Chatwin

Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin, Edited by Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare


Other Related Books or Materials

Bowie’s Bookshelf: the Hundred Books that Changed David Bowie’s Life (ebook)

Walking With Bruce Chatwin by Rory Stewart (about the importance and influence of The Songlines] (link opens a New York Review of Books article from June 2012)

Travel and Endless Talk Connected me to Details of Chatwin’s Songlines Missed (link opens an article from The Guardian from Oct 2017)

Bruce Chatwin, the Forgotten Travel-Writer is At-Last Being Remembered by Nicholas Shakespeare (link opens an article from The Oldie)


About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Thu, 18 Jun 2020 13:30:05 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/bruce-chatwin-the-songlines-9V1yA9W3 Note: given the current temporary closure of TPL due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made our best efforts to offer suggestions below for materials which are part our online collections (indicated) and available at home to anyone with a current Toronto Library card. 

Read: Why are wait times on ebooks or audiobooks sometimes so long?

 

Works by Bruce Chatwin

The Songlines

In Patagonia

Anatomy of Restlessness: Selected Writings, 1969-1989 (ebook)

On the Black Hill (ebook)

Utz (ebook)


Books About Bruce Chatwin

Bruce Chatwin by Nicholas Shakespeare

Anywhere Out of the World: the Work of Bruce Chatwin by Jonathan Chatwin

Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin, Edited by Elizabeth Chatwin and Nicholas Shakespeare


Other Related Books or Materials

Bowie’s Bookshelf: the Hundred Books that Changed David Bowie’s Life (ebook)

Walking With Bruce Chatwin by Rory Stewart (about the importance and influence of The Songlines] (link opens a New York Review of Books article from June 2012)

Travel and Endless Talk Connected me to Details of Chatwin’s Songlines Missed (link opens an article from The Guardian from Oct 2017)

Bruce Chatwin, the Forgotten Travel-Writer is At-Last Being Remembered by Nicholas Shakespeare (link opens an article from The Oldie)


About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Bruce Chatwin: The Songlines Toronto Public Library 00:46:54 Recorded in Toronto in 1986, this reading from Bruce Chatwin’s bestselling book, The Songlines, shows us the mastery that Chatwin developed as he both remains in the background of his scenes but also takes charge of the narrative via a colourful, all-knowing character, Arkady the Russian, and his travels into the Australian bush and the territories of Aboriginals. This ability for Chatwin to be a silent observer by allowing characters who were experts to take the lead (purportedly based on real people Chatwin met in his travels) was what made Chatwin such a unique writer and his style (and this rhetorical construction) has been so widely influential and used by so many writers hence that it may not always be apparent how incredibly talented he was as a storyteller. What is apparent, though, is what a great reader he is of his own work and how he takes us on this journey where, by the end, real life kicking in again seems stark and far less comical than the world we inhabited alongside him, the characters in our own lives far less colourful than the author’s. This audio is used with the permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc. for the Estate of Bruce Chatwin; the recording is also used with the permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Recorded in Toronto in 1986, this reading from Bruce Chatwin’s bestselling book, The Songlines, shows us the mastery that Chatwin developed as he both remains in the background of his scenes but also takes charge of the narrative via a colourful, all-knowing character, Arkady the Russian, and his travels into the Australian bush and the territories of Aboriginals. This ability for Chatwin to be a silent observer by allowing characters who were experts to take the lead (purportedly based on real people Chatwin met in his travels) was what made Chatwin such a unique writer and his style (and this rhetorical construction) has been so widely influential and used by so many writers hence that it may not always be apparent how incredibly talented he was as a storyteller. What is apparent, though, is what a great reader he is of his own work and how he takes us on this journey where, by the end, real life kicking in again seems stark and far less comical than the world we inhabited alongside him, the characters in our own lives far less colourful than the author’s. This audio is used with the permission of Georges Borchardt, Inc. for the Estate of Bruce Chatwin; the recording is also used with the permission of the Toronto International Festival of Authors. writers, tpl, bruce chatwin, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa true full 17 1 bcafd517-4eb1-4252-a6a3-52c2f8dd7e1e Lee Maracle: The Raven Note: given the current temporary closure of TPL due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made our best efforts to offer suggestions below for materials which are part our online collections (indicated) and available at home to anyone with a current Toronto Library card. 

Read: Why are wait times on ebooks or audiobooks sometimes so long?


__

Books by Lee Maracle

Memory Serves (ebook)

My Conversations with Canadians (ebook)

Celia’s Song (ebook)

Hope Matters (ebook)


Other Related Books or Materials

‘We Have the Same Language, But Definitely Different Rules’: An Interview with Lee Maracle (link opens a Hazlitt article)

High-schooler Catricia Hiebert reads the poem “War” by Lee Maracle for Les Voix des poésie competition (link opens a Youtube video)

Activist Lee Maracle On Why Every Question Is Worth Answering (Even If It's Racist) (link opens a Chatelaine article)

Lee Maracle Reflects on her Legacy as One of Canada's Most Influential Indigenous Writers  (link opens a CBC site)


About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Thu, 14 May 2020 21:36:27 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/lee-maracle-the-raven-gudaJaF0 Note: given the current temporary closure of TPL due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made our best efforts to offer suggestions below for materials which are part our online collections (indicated) and available at home to anyone with a current Toronto Library card. 

Read: Why are wait times on ebooks or audiobooks sometimes so long?


__

Books by Lee Maracle

Memory Serves (ebook)

My Conversations with Canadians (ebook)

Celia’s Song (ebook)

Hope Matters (ebook)


Other Related Books or Materials

‘We Have the Same Language, But Definitely Different Rules’: An Interview with Lee Maracle (link opens a Hazlitt article)

High-schooler Catricia Hiebert reads the poem “War” by Lee Maracle for Les Voix des poésie competition (link opens a Youtube video)

Activist Lee Maracle On Why Every Question Is Worth Answering (Even If It's Racist) (link opens a Chatelaine article)

Lee Maracle Reflects on her Legacy as One of Canada's Most Influential Indigenous Writers  (link opens a CBC site)


About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Lee Maracle: The Raven Toronto Public Library 00:22:42 Recorded in Toronto in 1991, Lee Maracle, one of Canada’s most important and celebrated writers - of the Sto:lo Nation in Salish Territory (also called British Columbia) - gives a glimpse into the ways traumatic histories continue to haunt families, communities, individuals. In her distinctive voice which calls on and to the Raven again and again, we hear that passion and fire that Maracle is so famous for bringing to her readings, her activism and her art. A true performance by a truly great artist. This audio was recorded as part of Toronto’s International Readings at Harbourfront Series (now called TIFA) and is used with the kind permission of Lee Maracle and the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Recorded in Toronto in 1991, Lee Maracle, one of Canada’s most important and celebrated writers - of the Sto:lo Nation in Salish Territory (also called British Columbia) - gives a glimpse into the ways traumatic histories continue to haunt families, communities, individuals. In her distinctive voice which calls on and to the Raven again and again, we hear that passion and fire that Maracle is so famous for bringing to her readings, her activism and her art. A true performance by a truly great artist. This audio was recorded as part of Toronto’s International Readings at Harbourfront Series (now called TIFA) and is used with the kind permission of Lee Maracle and the Toronto International Festival of Authors. writers, tpl, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, lee maracle, tifa false full 16 1 00c69b80-16c5-47f3-b58c-6487eacc9116 Austin Clarke: Doing Right Note: given the current temporary closure of TPL due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made our best efforts to offer suggestions below for materials which are part our online collections (indicated) and available at home to anyone with a current Toronto Library card. 

Read: Why are wait times on ebooks or audiobooks sometimes so long?


__


Works by Austin Clarke

Nine Men Who Laughed

‘Membering (ebook)

The Origin of Waves: a Novel (ebook)

Choosing His Coffin: the Best Stories of Austin Clarke (ebook)

Where the Sun Shines Best (ebook)

The Polished Hoe (audiobook)

Love and Sweet Food: a Culinary Memoir


Other Related Books or Materials

Austin Clarke: Essays on his Work by Camille Isaacs

The Passions of Austin Clarke by Donna Bailey Nurse (link opens an article from The Walrus from Jun 2016)

Remembering Author Austin Clarke by Andrea Baillie (ink opens McLean’s article from Jun 2016)

Austin Clarke: a Frank and Thoughtful Critic (link opens CBC Archives interview from 1963)

Austin Clarke (link opens a 1969 photo by Boris Sprimo from TPL’s Special Collections of the Toronto Star Archives; all of Clarke’s images from the Toronto Star Archives can be found here)


About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

]]> Thu, 30 Apr 2020 18:21:11 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/austin-clarke-doing-right-Aa5ob_UE Note: given the current temporary closure of TPL due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made our best efforts to offer suggestions below for materials which are part our online collections (indicated) and available at home to anyone with a current Toronto Library card. 

Read: Why are wait times on ebooks or audiobooks sometimes so long?


__


Works by Austin Clarke

Nine Men Who Laughed

‘Membering (ebook)

The Origin of Waves: a Novel (ebook)

Choosing His Coffin: the Best Stories of Austin Clarke (ebook)

Where the Sun Shines Best (ebook)

The Polished Hoe (audiobook)

Love and Sweet Food: a Culinary Memoir


Other Related Books or Materials

Austin Clarke: Essays on his Work by Camille Isaacs

The Passions of Austin Clarke by Donna Bailey Nurse (link opens an article from The Walrus from Jun 2016)

Remembering Author Austin Clarke by Andrea Baillie (ink opens McLean’s article from Jun 2016)

Austin Clarke: a Frank and Thoughtful Critic (link opens CBC Archives interview from 1963)

Austin Clarke (link opens a 1969 photo by Boris Sprimo from TPL’s Special Collections of the Toronto Star Archives; all of Clarke’s images from the Toronto Star Archives can be found here)


About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

]]> Austin Clarke: Doing Right Toronto Public Library 00:43:13 When he appeared for this recording on a stage in 1985 at Harbourfront, Austin Clarke was already a well-known writer in Toronto, having published seven novels, three story collections, and a best-selling memoir, in addition to his work as a freelance journalist for the CBC and the dated, clichéd, “angriest Black man in Canada” label that critics used to characterize his activism. This story, “Doing Right” (from his 1986 collection, Nine Men Who Laughed) shows Clarke’s humour and light-heartedness, bringing the signature cadence and rhythms of his West Indian-inflected English to the voice and characters that inhabit this Toronto. Clarke shows how some members of a community respond as a “Wessindian” migrant tries his best to do what he feels is the right thing. Through the lens of time and place, we’re offered a glimpse of how stories of newcomers were pivotal in transforming “Toronto the Good,” from the staid and quiet collection of villages whose sidewalks rolled up at 6pm, to the colourful, vibrant and cosmopolitan city of today. When he appeared for this recording on a stage in 1985 at Harbourfront, Austin Clarke was already a well-known writer in Toronto, having published seven novels, three story collections, and a best-selling memoir, in addition to his work as a freelance journalist for the CBC and the dated, clichéd, “angriest Black man in Canada” label that critics used to characterize his activism. This story, “Doing Right” (from his 1986 collection, Nine Men Who Laughed) shows Clarke’s humour and light-heartedness, bringing the signature cadence and rhythms of his West Indian-inflected English to the voice and characters that inhabit this Toronto. Clarke shows how some members of a community respond as a “Wessindian” migrant tries his best to do what he feels is the right thing. Through the lens of time and place, we’re offered a glimpse of how stories of newcomers were pivotal in transforming “Toronto the Good,” from the staid and quiet collection of villages whose sidewalks rolled up at 6pm, to the colourful, vibrant and cosmopolitan city of today. writers, tpl, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, austin clarke, tifa true full 15 1 4e48a68b-1f06-475b-b51c-04d52f2ee11e Gloria Naylor: Mama Day Note: Given the current temporary closure of TPL due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made our best efforts to offer suggestions below for materials which are part our online collections (indicated) and available at home to anyone with a current Toronto Library card. 

__

 

Works by Gloria Naylor

The Women of Brewster Place (ebook)

The Novels of Gloria Naylor: Mama Day, Linden Hills, Bailey’s Café (ebook)

Mama Day (print book)

The Women of Brewster Place (DVD of 1989 mini-series starring Oprah Winfrey and Cicely Tyson)

Bailey’s Café (print book)


Other Related Books or Materials

New York Times Obituary of Gloria Naylor (link opens NYT article from Oct 2016)

Unsolved Problems: Rachel Harper on Gloria Naylor  (link opens Los Angeles Review of Books article from Mar 2017)

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.
 

]]> Thu, 16 Apr 2020 14:59:39 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/gloria-naylor-mama-day-gEbYLLLZ Note: Given the current temporary closure of TPL due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made our best efforts to offer suggestions below for materials which are part our online collections (indicated) and available at home to anyone with a current Toronto Library card. 

__

 

Works by Gloria Naylor

The Women of Brewster Place (ebook)

The Novels of Gloria Naylor: Mama Day, Linden Hills, Bailey’s Café (ebook)

Mama Day (print book)

The Women of Brewster Place (DVD of 1989 mini-series starring Oprah Winfrey and Cicely Tyson)

Bailey’s Café (print book)


Other Related Books or Materials

New York Times Obituary of Gloria Naylor (link opens NYT article from Oct 2016)

Unsolved Problems: Rachel Harper on Gloria Naylor  (link opens Los Angeles Review of Books article from Mar 2017)

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.
 

]]> Gloria Naylor: Mama Day Toronto Public Library 00:34:04 Recorded live on stage in Toronto in 1988, American writer Gloria Naylor (1950-2016) reads from her 1989 novel, Mama Day, which in “the collective voice of the island” tells of a community with a rich history and proud heritage, forced to reckon with the modern world encroaching. Naylor’s reading is full of dark humour and rhythms that made her such an original talent - and a writer who was ahead of her time. Naylor’s reading was recorded as part of Toronto’s International Readings at Harbourfront Series (now called TIFA) and is used with the kind permission of Brilliance Audio, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and the Toronto International Festival of Authors. Recorded live on stage in Toronto in 1988, American writer Gloria Naylor (1950-2016) reads from her 1989 novel, Mama Day, which in “the collective voice of the island” tells of a community with a rich history and proud heritage, forced to reckon with the modern world encroaching. Naylor’s reading is full of dark humour and rhythms that made her such an original talent - and a writer who was ahead of her time. Naylor’s reading was recorded as part of Toronto’s International Readings at Harbourfront Series (now called TIFA) and is used with the kind permission of Brilliance Audio, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and the Toronto International Festival of Authors. writers, tpl, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, gloria naylor, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa true full 14 1 3e0447d9-3b1c-4faa-875e-cda7619d5995 Nikki Giovanni: Road Tripping Works by Nikki Giovanni

The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1969 - 1998

The Sun Is So Quiet: Poems

Rosa  (a short video)

Rosa (a kids biography)

I Am Loved 

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Nikki Giovanni: In her Revolutionary Dream (link opens Los Angeles Review of Book article)

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Thu, 12 Mar 2020 06:00:11 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/nikki-giovanni-road-tripping-dqHnANOC Works by Nikki Giovanni

The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni: 1969 - 1998

The Sun Is So Quiet: Poems

Rosa  (a short video)

Rosa (a kids biography)

I Am Loved 

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Nikki Giovanni: In her Revolutionary Dream (link opens Los Angeles Review of Book article)

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Nikki Giovanni: Road Tripping Toronto Public Library 00:29:00 In this monologue performed on stage in 1991, American poet, Nikki Giovanni, shows us her associative mind in action, flitting around from current affair to current affair: the shameful way American society treats young Black men, the challenges and struggles of a young rapper called Tupac Shakur (several years before his untimely death), her dream of traveling to space even if only to open a beer and smoke a cigarette - and she’s just getting started. This series of soliloquies leads us everywhere and nowhere, but certain thoughts she expresses may linger in your mind: the fear that she feels for an instant when pulled over by a police officer during a long road trip with a friend - you think you know where the story is going and then she surprises you. In this monologue performed on stage in 1991, American poet, Nikki Giovanni, shows us her associative mind in action, flitting around from current affair to current affair: the shameful way American society treats young Black men, the challenges and struggles of a young rapper called Tupac Shakur (several years before his untimely death), her dream of traveling to space even if only to open a beer and smoke a cigarette - and she’s just getting started. This series of soliloquies leads us everywhere and nowhere, but certain thoughts she expresses may linger in your mind: the fear that she feels for an instant when pulled over by a police officer during a long road trip with a friend - you think you know where the story is going and then she surprises you. writers, tpl, nikki giovanni, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa false full 13 1 9e7b5226-0e78-4577-a2c3-17271a701d10 Grace Paley Saves the World Works by Grace Paley

Later the Same Day

Just As I Thought

A Grace Paley Reader

The Little Disturbances of Man

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Grace Paley, the Saint of Seeing by George Saunders (link opens a New Yorker article)

Grace Paley’s Crowded World (link opens article in The Nation)

The Value of Not Understanding Everything: Grace Paley’s Advice to Aspiring Writers (link opens Brain Pickings article)

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Thu, 27 Feb 2020 07:00:06 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/grace-paley-saves-the-world-V48c0TYj Works by Grace Paley

Later the Same Day

Just As I Thought

A Grace Paley Reader

The Little Disturbances of Man

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Grace Paley, the Saint of Seeing by George Saunders (link opens a New Yorker article)

Grace Paley’s Crowded World (link opens article in The Nation)

The Value of Not Understanding Everything: Grace Paley’s Advice to Aspiring Writers (link opens Brain Pickings article)

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Grace Paley Saves the World Toronto Public Library 00:24:00 Though the audio has a few technical glitches and rough patches given the age of the recording, Grace Paley’s story within a story, which she performs herself on stage in 1994 in Toronto (a story she calls “Oliver’s Story,” but which was published under the title “The Story Hearer,” as part her 1985 collection, Later the Same Day), has many of the hallmarks that made Paley one of the English-language’s most original and intelligent short story writers. Starting around a dining room table conversation as a married couple compare their time off before the “hard time to come” (and in an nearly perfect opening paragraph), Paley’s narrator dives into the retelling of her day, moving from the humour of her domestic duties to her roundabout quest to buy greens while referencing Artaud and Surrealist French Theatre with the neighbourhood grocer. This charming and at times oblique story seems to cry out for multiple listenings as, with many of Paley’s stories, new images, new words, new ideas and new comic lines reveal themselves each time. Though the audio has a few technical glitches and rough patches given the age of the recording, Grace Paley’s story within a story, which she performs herself on stage in 1994 in Toronto (a story she calls “Oliver’s Story,” but which was published under the title “The Story Hearer,” as part her 1985 collection, Later the Same Day), has many of the hallmarks that made Paley one of the English-language’s most original and intelligent short story writers. Starting around a dining room table conversation as a married couple compare their time off before the “hard time to come” (and in an nearly perfect opening paragraph), Paley’s narrator dives into the retelling of her day, moving from the humour of her domestic duties to her roundabout quest to buy greens while referencing Artaud and Surrealist French Theatre with the neighbourhood grocer. This charming and at times oblique story seems to cry out for multiple listenings as, with many of Paley’s stories, new images, new words, new ideas and new comic lines reveal themselves each time. writers, tpl, reading, library, books, grace paley, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa false full 12 1 6fe5b2c0-656c-4672-8c1f-c4d40a49a00c Nikki Giovanni: Soothing the Longings Works by Nikki Giovanni

A Good Cry: What We Learn from Tears and Laughter

The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni, 1969-1998

Lincoln and Douglass: an American Friendship

Bicycles: Love Poems

Rosa

Vacation Time: Poems for Children

Nikki Giovanni: “Martin Had Faith in People” (link opens article from The Atlantic)

 

About Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni: a Literary Biography

Poet Nikki Giovanni on the Darker Side of Her Life (link opens an NPR article)

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Thu, 13 Feb 2020 22:18:01 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/nikki-giovanni-soothing-the-longings-ZN7EdBpt Works by Nikki Giovanni

A Good Cry: What We Learn from Tears and Laughter

The Collected Poetry of Nikki Giovanni, 1969-1998

Lincoln and Douglass: an American Friendship

Bicycles: Love Poems

Rosa

Vacation Time: Poems for Children

Nikki Giovanni: “Martin Had Faith in People” (link opens article from The Atlantic)

 

About Nikki Giovanni

Nikki Giovanni: a Literary Biography

Poet Nikki Giovanni on the Darker Side of Her Life (link opens an NPR article)

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Nikki Giovanni: Soothing the Longings Toronto Public Library 00:25:51 With her incomparable style and humour, in riff-inspired digressions that are both funny and moving, Nikki Giovanni shows us an associative poet’s mind at work as she blends details of a domestic life with touchstones on the culture that has influenced her. In between long dives into, among other subjects, the commissioning of a poem for Mother’s Day and her attempt at not writing anything “tacky,” to what happens when Black men are made into an enemy in the culture, Giovanni performs three pieces: “A Poem for Langston Hughes,” “Hands for Mother's Day,” and “Ego-Tripping.” This episode shows us why Nikki Giovanni is truly an original talent. With her incomparable style and humour, in riff-inspired digressions that are both funny and moving, Nikki Giovanni shows us an associative poet’s mind at work as she blends details of a domestic life with touchstones on the culture that has influenced her. In between long dives into, among other subjects, the commissioning of a poem for Mother’s Day and her attempt at not writing anything “tacky,” to what happens when Black men are made into an enemy in the culture, Giovanni performs three pieces: “A Poem for Langston Hughes,” “Hands for Mother's Day,” and “Ego-Tripping.” This episode shows us why Nikki Giovanni is truly an original talent. writers, tpl, nikki giovanni, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa false full 11 1 567976fb-5f98-4309-a7ba-543637468307 A Life of Activism: Larry Kramer in Conversation with June Callwood Works by Larry Kramer

The American People: Volume 1: The Search for My Heart

The American People: Volume 2: The Brutality of Fact: a Novel

The Normal Heart

The Destiny of Me: a Play in Three Acts

Larry Kramer: What Pride Means to Me (link opens Salon.com article from June, 2019)

 

About Larry Kramer

We Must Love One Another or Die: the Life and Legacies of Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer: In Love & Anger (2015 documentary)

 

Other Related Books or Materials

The Normal Heart (2014 film starring Matthew Bomer)

Larry Kramer is Still the Angriest Man in the World (link opens an Interview Magazine article from Dec 2019)

 

Books by or About June Callwood
Trial Without End: A Shocking Story of Women and AIDS

It’s All About Kindness: Remembering June Callwood

 

About June Callwood

June Callwood, often dubbed, “Canada’s Conscience,” was a journalist who wrote over 2,000 articles in her career, spanning six decades. Her work as a social activist made her a champion of free speech and intellectual freedom and she was the founder or co-founder or many Canadian charities including Casey House (Canada’s first hospice for those suffering from AIDS) and Jessie’s, the June Callwood Centre for Young Women. She also founded the Toronto Public Library’s annual lecture series, the June Callwood Lecture, which honours each year an activist who provides a platform for the exploration and discussion of contemporary social justice issues. Recent lecturers have included Albert Woodfox, Ahmad Danny Ramadan and Clara Hughes.

Born in 1924 in Chatham, Ontario, Callwood died, in Toronto, in 2007, leaving a legacy as one of Canada’s most important champions of social justice.

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

]]> Thu, 30 Jan 2020 19:28:29 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/life-of-activism-larry-kramer-june-callwood-uAaUG_cX Works by Larry Kramer

The American People: Volume 1: The Search for My Heart

The American People: Volume 2: The Brutality of Fact: a Novel

The Normal Heart

The Destiny of Me: a Play in Three Acts

Larry Kramer: What Pride Means to Me (link opens Salon.com article from June, 2019)

 

About Larry Kramer

We Must Love One Another or Die: the Life and Legacies of Larry Kramer

Larry Kramer: In Love & Anger (2015 documentary)

 

Other Related Books or Materials

The Normal Heart (2014 film starring Matthew Bomer)

Larry Kramer is Still the Angriest Man in the World (link opens an Interview Magazine article from Dec 2019)

 

Books by or About June Callwood
Trial Without End: A Shocking Story of Women and AIDS

It’s All About Kindness: Remembering June Callwood

 

About June Callwood

June Callwood, often dubbed, “Canada’s Conscience,” was a journalist who wrote over 2,000 articles in her career, spanning six decades. Her work as a social activist made her a champion of free speech and intellectual freedom and she was the founder or co-founder or many Canadian charities including Casey House (Canada’s first hospice for those suffering from AIDS) and Jessie’s, the June Callwood Centre for Young Women. She also founded the Toronto Public Library’s annual lecture series, the June Callwood Lecture, which honours each year an activist who provides a platform for the exploration and discussion of contemporary social justice issues. Recent lecturers have included Albert Woodfox, Ahmad Danny Ramadan and Clara Hughes.

Born in 1924 in Chatham, Ontario, Callwood died, in Toronto, in 2007, leaving a legacy as one of Canada’s most important champions of social justice.

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

]]> A Life of Activism: Larry Kramer in Conversation with June Callwood Toronto Public Library 00:43:32 American writer, playwright and AIDS activist, Larry Kramer, talks with famed Canadian journalist and social activist, June Callwood (1924-2007), about his life as an activist writer, his struggles with censorship and apathy, his failed attempt at donating his estate to Yale University, and the complex relationship he has with the literary establishment. Volume 2 of Kramer’s The American People: The Brutality of Fact: A Novel, was released in January 2020. American writer, playwright and AIDS activist, Larry Kramer, talks with famed Canadian journalist and social activist, June Callwood (1924-2007), about his life as an activist writer, his struggles with censorship and apathy, his failed attempt at donating his estate to Yale University, and the complex relationship he has with the literary establishment. Volume 2 of Kramer’s The American People: The Brutality of Fact: A Novel, was released in January 2020. writers, tpl, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, june callwood, randy boyagoda, larry kramer, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa false full 10 1 d931e57c-0e7e-4d5b-b2de-bea0df9d3235 Gwendolyn Brooks: The World Might Continue Works by Gwendolyn Brooks

The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks

Selected Poems

Gwendolyn Brooks (Poetry Foundation article)

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Gwendolyn Brooks

Conversations with Gwendolyn Brooks

A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks

The Importance of Being Ordinary (New Republic article from July 2017)

Jane Addams: Spirit in Action

On Gwendolyn Brooks’ Birthday, a Statue of the Powerful Poet (Chicago Tribune article from June 2018)

A Short History of South Africa

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

Audio and transcript used with the permission of the Brooks Estate.

]]> Thu, 2 Jan 2020 20:49:25 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/gwendolyn-brooks-the-world-might-continue-D3XYIVYY Works by Gwendolyn Brooks

The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks

Selected Poems

Gwendolyn Brooks (Poetry Foundation article)

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Gwendolyn Brooks

Conversations with Gwendolyn Brooks

A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks

The Importance of Being Ordinary (New Republic article from July 2017)

Jane Addams: Spirit in Action

On Gwendolyn Brooks’ Birthday, a Statue of the Powerful Poet (Chicago Tribune article from June 2018)

A Short History of South Africa

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

Audio and transcript used with the permission of the Brooks Estate.

]]> Gwendolyn Brooks: The World Might Continue Toronto Public Library 00:17:21 Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, reads poems that explore in her unique way the painful historical and contemporary lives of Africans under Apartheid, suffragettes fighting for the rights of the poor, and even the tragic tale of a young girl murdered by her foster father in a fit of rage. In her booming cadence and never ambiguous phrasing, Brooks unpacks moments and images that signify the lives of the powerless and gives them voice in moving words that continue to haunt. Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, reads poems that explore in her unique way the painful historical and contemporary lives of Africans under Apartheid, suffragettes fighting for the rights of the poor, and even the tragic tale of a young girl murdered by her foster father in a fit of rage. In her booming cadence and never ambiguous phrasing, Brooks unpacks moments and images that signify the lives of the powerless and gives them voice in moving words that continue to haunt. writers, tpl, poetry, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, gwendolyn brooks, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa false full 9 1 dca1fe6f-cd07-4134-8089-093d178cd6b2 “Traveling” with Grace Paley Works by Grace Paley

The Collected Stories

A Grace Paley Reader

Just As I Thought

Fidelity: Poems


 

Other Related Books or Materials

The Art and Activism of Grace Paley (link opens a New Yorker article from 2017)

Margalit Fox’s 2007 obituary of Grace Paley (link opens New York Times article)

Grace Paley: the Art of Fiction (link opens a Paris Review interview from 1992)

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

]]> Thu, 19 Dec 2019 14:27:26 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/traveling-with-grace-paley-453NLpFE Works by Grace Paley

The Collected Stories

A Grace Paley Reader

Just As I Thought

Fidelity: Poems


 

Other Related Books or Materials

The Art and Activism of Grace Paley (link opens a New Yorker article from 2017)

Margalit Fox’s 2007 obituary of Grace Paley (link opens New York Times article)

Grace Paley: the Art of Fiction (link opens a Paris Review interview from 1992)

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

]]> “Traveling” with Grace Paley Toronto Public Library 00:15:28 American writer Grace Paley reads her story, “Traveling,” from her collection, Just As I Thought. Used with the permission of the Paley estate. American writer Grace Paley reads her story, “Traveling,” from her collection, Just As I Thought. Used with the permission of the Paley estate. writers, tpl, reading, library, books, grace paley, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, just as i thought, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, traveling, canlit, tifa false full 8 1 ecd98926-e7e0-4c15-a05a-187af0f8dd7b Gwendolyn Brooks: Poems That (Don't) Cough Lightly Works by Gwendolyn Brooks

The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks

Selected Poems

A Street in Bronzeville

Bronzeville Boys and Girls (children’s picture book by Brooks)

 

Other Related Books or Materials

A Surprised Queenhood in the Black Sun: the Life & Legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks

Conversations with Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Books (Poetry Foundation article and poetry)

Remembering the Great Poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, at 100 (NPR audio news story)

A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks by Alice Faye Duncan

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

Audio and transcript used with the permission of the Brooks Estate.

 

]]> Thu, 5 Dec 2019 07:00:24 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/gwendolyn-brooks-poems-that-dont-cough-lightly-_s5wqIVZ Works by Gwendolyn Brooks

The Essential Gwendolyn Brooks

Selected Poems

A Street in Bronzeville

Bronzeville Boys and Girls (children’s picture book by Brooks)

 

Other Related Books or Materials

A Surprised Queenhood in the Black Sun: the Life & Legacy of Gwendolyn Brooks

Conversations with Gwendolyn Brooks

Gwendolyn Books (Poetry Foundation article and poetry)

Remembering the Great Poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, at 100 (NPR audio news story)

A Song for Gwendolyn Brooks by Alice Faye Duncan

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

Audio and transcript used with the permission of the Brooks Estate.

 

]]> Gwendolyn Brooks: Poems That (Don't) Cough Lightly Toronto Public Library 00:19:38 Pulitzer prize-winning poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, reads three of her poems live on stage, entitled, “Winnie,” about the life and legacy of Winnie Mandela, wife of Nelson Mandela, “The Children of the Poor,” and “The Ballad of Pearl May Lee,” poems written a generation ago or longer but which still have amazingly contemporary resonance. Pulitzer prize-winning poet, Gwendolyn Brooks, reads three of her poems live on stage, entitled, “Winnie,” about the life and legacy of Winnie Mandela, wife of Nelson Mandela, “The Children of the Poor,” and “The Ballad of Pearl May Lee,” poems written a generation ago or longer but which still have amazingly contemporary resonance. writers, tpl, reading, library, kanye west, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, gwendolyn brooks, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa true full 7 1 f02f2760-cacb-4d56-b41b-5e0986ab8874 Jim Harrison: “Don’t Make Me Dirty, Darling” Works by Jim Harrison

The Road Home

Legends of the Fall

The Essential Poems

The River Swimmer: novellas

 

Other Related Books or Materials

“Alfresco” a poem by Merrill Gilfillan (Poetry Foundation)

Grizzly Years by Doug Peacock

Cloudbursts: Collected and New Stories by Thomas McGuane

Gallatin Canyon: Stories by Thomas McGuane

Driving on the Rim: a Novel by Thomas McGuane

Thomas McGuane remembers his friend, Jim Harrison (LitHub article from Aug 2017)

Ranier Maria Rilke: Letters to a Young Poet

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

 

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

 

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Thu, 21 Nov 2019 07:00:03 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/jim-harrison-part-two-dont-make-me-dirty-darling-i9o2iyVp Works by Jim Harrison

The Road Home

Legends of the Fall

The Essential Poems

The River Swimmer: novellas

 

Other Related Books or Materials

“Alfresco” a poem by Merrill Gilfillan (Poetry Foundation)

Grizzly Years by Doug Peacock

Cloudbursts: Collected and New Stories by Thomas McGuane

Gallatin Canyon: Stories by Thomas McGuane

Driving on the Rim: a Novel by Thomas McGuane

Thomas McGuane remembers his friend, Jim Harrison (LitHub article from Aug 2017)

Ranier Maria Rilke: Letters to a Young Poet

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

 

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

 

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Jim Harrison: “Don’t Make Me Dirty, Darling” Toronto Public Library 00:19:58 Jim Harrison: Part Two: “Don’t Make Me Dirty, Darling” In this second and final part of an interview with American novelist and poet, Jim Harrison, the conversation circles around Harrison’s complicated view of teaching writing students, the writers that he reads and admires, and his long friendship with writer Thomas McGuane. Jim Harrison: Part Two: “Don’t Make Me Dirty, Darling” In this second and final part of an interview with American novelist and poet, Jim Harrison, the conversation circles around Harrison’s complicated view of teaching writing students, the writers that he reads and admires, and his long friendship with writer Thomas McGuane. writers, tpl, reading, library, books, jim harrison, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, ian brown, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa true full 6 1 b1e70e64-1eab-4c38-aef7-e565a6cdcd57 Jim Harrison: “You’ve Made Quite a Living From Your Fibs” Works by Jim Harrison

The Road Home

Legends of the Fall

Dalva

True North

 

Works about Jim Harrison

Off to the Side: a Memoir

Jim Harrison, the Art of Fiction, No. 104 (Paris Review article, summer 1988)

Jim Harrison, the Mozart of the Prairies (New Yorker article, March 2016)

 

Other Related Books or Materials

The Raw and the Cooked: Cooking Your Life by Jim Harrison (Esquire article, June 1991)

Wallace Stevens: poems

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

 

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

**

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Fri, 8 Nov 2019 00:03:21 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/jim-harrison-part-1-youve-made-quite-a-living-o3dh2sxE Works by Jim Harrison

The Road Home

Legends of the Fall

Dalva

True North

 

Works about Jim Harrison

Off to the Side: a Memoir

Jim Harrison, the Art of Fiction, No. 104 (Paris Review article, summer 1988)

Jim Harrison, the Mozart of the Prairies (New Yorker article, March 2016)

 

Other Related Books or Materials

The Raw and the Cooked: Cooking Your Life by Jim Harrison (Esquire article, June 1991)

Wallace Stevens: poems

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

 

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

**

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Jim Harrison: “You’ve Made Quite a Living From Your Fibs” Toronto Public Library 00:23:03 In this first part of two, American novelist and poet, Jim Harrison, talks in expansive and at times rambling terms with Ian Brown about writing his masterpiece, Legends of the Fall, in only nine days, and how his iconic character, Dalva, a complex and tragic female protagonist, came to him, as well as what he does to get over the sensation that he’s trapped in the lives of his characters. In this first part of two, American novelist and poet, Jim Harrison, talks in expansive and at times rambling terms with Ian Brown about writing his masterpiece, Legends of the Fall, in only nine days, and how his iconic character, Dalva, a complex and tragic female protagonist, came to him, as well as what he does to get over the sensation that he’s trapped in the lives of his characters. writers, tpl, reading, library, books, jim harrison, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, legends of the fall, ian brown, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa true full 5 1 92349bf1-32c0-415f-8bc7-696e1bfb69b3 Susan Sontag: "Make Something Better" Works by Susan Sontag

From America

The Volcano Lover

Tuesday, and After: New Yorker Writers Respond to 9/11 (New Yorker article from Sep 2001)

Regarding the Pain of Others

Debriefing: Collected Stories

 

Works about Susan Sontag

Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser

Robert Fulford: A Sojourn With Susan Sontag (National Post article from 2012)

Susan Sontag: The Complete Rolling Stone Interview

Susan Sontag: A Biography by Daniel Schreiber

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Theatre of War by Lewis Lapham

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

 

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

 

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Thu, 24 Oct 2019 06:00:01 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/susan-sontag-part-three-make-something-better-Sgr7KIqI Works by Susan Sontag

From America

The Volcano Lover

Tuesday, and After: New Yorker Writers Respond to 9/11 (New Yorker article from Sep 2001)

Regarding the Pain of Others

Debriefing: Collected Stories

 

Works about Susan Sontag

Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser

Robert Fulford: A Sojourn With Susan Sontag (National Post article from 2012)

Susan Sontag: The Complete Rolling Stone Interview

Susan Sontag: A Biography by Daniel Schreiber

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Theatre of War by Lewis Lapham

 

About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

 

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

 

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

]]> Susan Sontag: "Make Something Better" Toronto Public Library 00:19:25 Susan Sontag: Part Four: “Make Something Better” In this part, the last of four, Sontag considers earlier words of hers about the religion of profitability in the USA and how it underpins all of American society. She talks about the important distinction between imagining a utopian society vs simply working towards something better from the lives of her characters in From America. And she reflects on how hesitant she is to imagine and speak for the country of Canada, a settler nation to use the parlance of the time, in a far less complex and fraught pre-911 world. Susan Sontag: Part Four: “Make Something Better” In this part, the last of four, Sontag considers earlier words of hers about the religion of profitability in the USA and how it underpins all of American society. She talks about the important distinction between imagining a utopian society vs simply working towards something better from the lives of her characters in From America. And she reflects on how hesitant she is to imagine and speak for the country of Canada, a settler nation to use the parlance of the time, in a far less complex and fraught pre-911 world. writers, tpl, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, evan solomon, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, susan sontag, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa false full 4 1 1f3c0155-1c74-401e-87b2-19c56aa604f0 Susan Sontag: “The Arts Give Humans Dignity” Writers Off the Page is a biweekly podcast series produced by Toronto Public Library that presents the best of 40 years from the archives of the Toronto International Festival of Authors (formerly known as IFOA: International Festival of Authors). Between 10-20 minutes long, episodes feature interviews, readings and discussions with some of the 20th century's best-known writers.

 

Works by Susan Sontag

From America

The Volcano Lover

“Godot Comes to Sarajevo” (New York Review of Books article)

 

Books about Susan Sontag

Swimming in a Sea of Death: a Son’s Memoir by David Rieff

Sempre Susan: a Memoir of Susan Sontag by Sigrid Nunez

Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Waiting for Godot: Tragicomedy in Two Acts by Samuel Beckett

Ubu Roi: Drama in Five Acts by Alfred Jarry

Regarding Susan Sontag: a 2015 documentary


About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

 

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

**

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

]]> Thu, 10 Oct 2019 16:50:48 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/susan-sontag-part-three-the-arts-give-humans-dignity-ATMbRLAF Writers Off the Page is a biweekly podcast series produced by Toronto Public Library that presents the best of 40 years from the archives of the Toronto International Festival of Authors (formerly known as IFOA: International Festival of Authors). Between 10-20 minutes long, episodes feature interviews, readings and discussions with some of the 20th century's best-known writers.

 

Works by Susan Sontag

From America

The Volcano Lover

“Godot Comes to Sarajevo” (New York Review of Books article)

 

Books about Susan Sontag

Swimming in a Sea of Death: a Son’s Memoir by David Rieff

Sempre Susan: a Memoir of Susan Sontag by Sigrid Nunez

Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser

 

Other Related Books or Materials

Waiting for Godot: Tragicomedy in Two Acts by Samuel Beckett

Ubu Roi: Drama in Five Acts by Alfred Jarry

Regarding Susan Sontag: a 2015 documentary


About the Host

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

 

Music is by Yuka

 

From the Archives

Writers Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.

**

Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.

 

]]> Susan Sontag: “The Arts Give Humans Dignity” Toronto Public Library 00:19:05 In this part, the third of four, Sontag tells the story of how she came to direct a production of Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” in 1990s war-torn Sarajevo, a project that was lauded by some as brilliant and brave, but also excoriated by others as decadent and pretentious. Throughout the discussion with Evan Solomon, Sontag resists the urge to make her work about her own personal experiences or personality and continues to show the thoughtful and deliberate reasoning that underpins much of her writing. In this part, the third of four, Sontag tells the story of how she came to direct a production of Beckett’s “Waiting for Godot” in 1990s war-torn Sarajevo, a project that was lauded by some as brilliant and brave, but also excoriated by others as decadent and pretentious. Throughout the discussion with Evan Solomon, Sontag resists the urge to make her work about her own personal experiences or personality and continues to show the thoughtful and deliberate reasoning that underpins much of her writing. writers, tpl, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, evan solomon, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, susan sontag, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa false full 3 1 2e149d4c-f1ac-4eb8-8563-fd6ddbab369a Susan Sontag: “The Little Illness Book” Books by Susan Sontag

The Benefactor

Illness as Metaphor/AIDS and Its Metaphors

From America

 

Books about Susan Sontag

Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser

 

Other Books or Materials Mentioned

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Film: David Lean’s 1946 version of Great Expectations (Criterion Collection)

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

 

About the Host:

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

 

Music is by Yuka.

 

This podcast series is produced by Toronto Public Library, in collaboration with TIFA (Toronto International Festival of Authors) and Library and Archives Canada.

 

 

]]> Thu, 26 Sep 2019 06:00:06 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/writers-off-the-page-susan-sontag-part-two-the-little-illness-book-bEeEeIgW Books by Susan Sontag

The Benefactor

Illness as Metaphor/AIDS and Its Metaphors

From America

 

Books about Susan Sontag

Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser

 

Other Books or Materials Mentioned

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Film: David Lean’s 1946 version of Great Expectations (Criterion Collection)

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

 

About the Host:

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

 

Music is by Yuka.

 

This podcast series is produced by Toronto Public Library, in collaboration with TIFA (Toronto International Festival of Authors) and Library and Archives Canada.

 

 

]]> Susan Sontag: “The Little Illness Book” Toronto Public Library 00:19:12 Writers Off the Page: Susan Sontag - Part Two: "The Little Illness Book" The second of four parts, Evan Solomon talks to Sontag about how having breast cancer in 1975 led her to write Illness as Metaphor (which she was told would be her last book) - and then later, AIDS and Its Metaphors - and how re-reading her favourite books is such a pleasurable experience. Writers Off the Page: Susan Sontag - Part Two: "The Little Illness Book" The second of four parts, Evan Solomon talks to Sontag about how having breast cancer in 1975 led her to write Illness as Metaphor (which she was told would be her last book) - and then later, AIDS and Its Metaphors - and how re-reading her favourite books is such a pleasurable experience. writers, tpl, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, evan solomon, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, randy boyagoda, susan sontag, authors, ifoa, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa false full 2 1 ef1c3b11-7af7-41ba-97b8-1fd1ec6b3047 Susan Sontag: “This God-Damned Celebrity Culture” Books by Susan Sontag:

Illness as Metaphor/AIDS and Its Metaphors

In America: A Novel

Fascinating Fascism: Susan Sontag on Leni Riefenstahl (The New York Review of Books)

Notes on "Camp"

Books about Susan Sontag:

Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser

About the Host:

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka.

This podcast series is produced by Toronto Public Library, in collaboration with TIFA (Toronto International Festival of Authors) and Library and Archives Canada.

 

]]> Wed, 11 Sep 2019 16:32:16 +0000 toleksuik@tpl.ca (Toronto Public Library) https://writersoffthepage.ca/episodes/writers-off-the-page-susan-sontag-part-1-KUDO3hX4 Books by Susan Sontag:

Illness as Metaphor/AIDS and Its Metaphors

In America: A Novel

Fascinating Fascism: Susan Sontag on Leni Riefenstahl (The New York Review of Books)

Notes on "Camp"

Books about Susan Sontag:

Sontag: Her Life and Work by Benjamin Moser

About the Host:

Novelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.

Music is by Yuka.

This podcast series is produced by Toronto Public Library, in collaboration with TIFA (Toronto International Festival of Authors) and Library and Archives Canada.

 

]]> Susan Sontag: “This God-Damned Celebrity Culture” Toronto Public Library 00:23:44 Writers Off the Page: Susan Sontag - Part One: “This God-Damned Celebrity Culture” The first of four parts, Evan Solomon talks to Sontag about the cult of personality surrounding authors and their work and why she prefers writing novels over writing essays, despite being associated with some of the best and more provocative essays written in the 20th century. Writers Off the Page: Susan Sontag - Part One: “This God-Damned Celebrity Culture” The first of four parts, Evan Solomon talks to Sontag about the cult of personality surrounding authors and their work and why she prefers writing novels over writing essays, despite being associated with some of the best and more provocative essays written in the 20th century. writers, tpl, reading, library, books, archival, arts, culture, toronto public library, toronto, archives, literature, authors, toronto international festival of authors, interviews, canlit, tifa false full 1 1