One Life to Live
with Marc Bendavid, Susie Taylor and Shani Mootoo
Hosted by Peter Schneider
The Sapling is an incredibly delicate rendering of an equally delicate relationship—one I have never seen depicted in literature before. It is presented as a love we don’t have a name for, which this novel works so beautifully to name and not name.
It is through our relationships with the people and places we call home that we come to know ourselves. Join us for a conversation with three celebrated authors whose new books ask the essential question we all face: Who am I?
Marc Bendavid’s autobiographical novel, The Sapling, explores a powerful bond between a young boy and his teacher; an excavation of art, memory, grief, and transformative love. At the beginning of sixth grade, newly admitted to a special school for the arts, Marc meets Klara Bloem. Klara is an art teacher, an immigrant to Toronto from South Africa, a devoted naturalist, a painter, and a passionate reader. Those first years glow with special intensity. As the memories of those days become hazy and hard to access, he misses the brilliance of their early connection. Years later, when he is working as an actor in Los Angeles, Klara’s daughter Eva reaches out to deliver heartbreaking news, and it all comes rushing back in a flush of colour.
Vigil: Stories by Susie Taylor, winner of the Alistair MacLeod Award for Short Fiction, is set in the fictional, ex-urban community of Bay Mal Verde, a town that rests between the ocean and the wilderness. Each linked piece is both a chapter in the overall story and also a stand-alone investigation of the concepts of addiction, crime, redemption, and complicity.
Set against the backdrop of a politically exciting time in Trinidad’s history, just before and after it gained independence, Starry Starry Night by celebrated author, poet and visual artist Shani Mootoo is a work of autofiction about family secrets, trauma, race, class, and loss. It gives us the singular voice of Anju Ghoshal, a young girl living in 1960s Trinidad. Through Anju’s innocent and clear-eyed observations, the reader becomes both a witness to and a participant in her negotiations of an unexpectedly new and complex life, spanning the ages from four to twelve.
Books are available from our friends at Perfect Books.
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