Past and Present with David Chariandy, Alison Pick and Linden MacIntyre

Three brilliant novels investigate the ways that history shadows every moment and seek to illuminate how understanding our history informs the future. Join us for a taste of the new books and a conversation on lessons not yet learned.

Brother is the second novel from David Chariandy, whose debut, Soucouyant, was nominated for nearly every major literary prize in Canada. It explores questions of masculinity, family, race, and identity as they are played out in a Scarborough housing complex during the sweltering heat and simmering violence of the summer of 1991.

Strangers with the Same Dream by Alison Pick, the Man Booker Prize nominated author of Far to Go, whisks us back to 1921 Palestine, when a band of young Jewish pioneers, many escaping violence in their homelands, set out to realize a utopian dream: the founding of a kibbutz on a patch of land that will, twenty-five years later, become part of the State of Israel.

Scotiabank Giller prize-winner Linden MacIntyre is back with The Only Café a timely and gripping novel in which a son tries to solve the mystery of his father's death--a man who tried but could not forget a troubled past in his native Lebanon.

Books available for purchase at every event: Proceeds support our free children’s literacy programs.