Event Info
Complicated Belonging
Presented by Kingston WritersFest
1:00pm - 2:00pm
$21.69-$26.89
Event Description
Complicated Belonging
Janika Oza and Catherine Hernandez
Reading and Conversation
Bellevue
1:00 – 2:00 pm
Event Sponsor: The Screening Room
Arts Partner: Reelout Arts Project Inc
Taken from home by fate, others’ greed, politics and poverty, the generations of families in Janika Oza’s (A History of Burning) and Catherine Hernandez’s (The Story of Us) gorgeous novels are nevertheless bound by blood, love, and belief in a better future. Join the two over coffee for a conversation about identity, place, colonialism, and connection.
Janika Oza
“I wrote a novel,” says Janika Oza, “that moves from India to Kenya to Uganda to Canada and the United Kingdom, probing questions of belonging and survival in shifting lands and homes. My writing was propelled by a desire to understand that question of where I come from. But embedded in that question were more: what does it mean to be a migrant community settling in another colonized place? To seek refuge on stolen land? What does it mean to pursue safety and security in a system that is also causing harm to other communities?”
Janika Oza has an impressive CV for a debut novelist. A chapter of her novel, A History of Burning, was longlisted for the 2019 CBC Short Story Prize and published in Prairie Schooner. Praise for it has been generous, with the New York Times Book Review calling it “remarkable… A haunting, symphonic tale that speaks to the nuanced complexities of class and trauma… This demand—and spirit—for bolder storytelling that transcends borders and identities certainly can be found in Oza’s generous novel.” Janika is the winner of a 2022 O. Henry Prize for Short Fiction and the 2020 Kenyon Review Short Fiction Contest. She has received fellowships and support from VONA, Tin House, One Story, the Millay Colony, the Toronto Arts Council, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Canada Council for the Arts. She is a Features reader for The Rumpus and a 2020 Diaspora Dialogues long-form fiction mentee.
Catherine Hernandez
“Catherine Hernandez is ground-breaking. Her talent is remarkable. I dare you not to cry or scream or marvel or, like me, do all at once while reading this book. This story is a masterpiece of voice and metaphor, image and embodiment.” – Cherie Dimaline
Catherine Hernandez is an award-winning author and screenwriter. Her first novel, Scarborough, won the Jim Wong-Chu Award for the unpublished manuscript; was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Awards, the Evergreen Forest of Reading Award, the Edmund White Award, and the Trillium Book Award; and a finalist for Canada Reads. Crosshairs was also shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award. She has written critically acclaimed plays and three children’s books. Her screenplay for the film adaptation of Scarborough won the Shawn Mendes Foundation Changemaker Award, was nominated for 11 Canadian Screen Awards and won 8, including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay, amongst other awards. She is the creator of the audio sketch comedy series Imminent Disaster and is currently working on a few television projects. Catherine’s latest novel, The Story of Us is uniquely narrated by an all-seeing newborn baby and tells the story of generations of women trying to find a home and life for their families. The Toronto Star describes it as “at once bold and ambitious, while simultaneously hushed and intimate. It’s emotionally bare and astute, and frequently funny and utterly human, a reminder of the bonds that hold us, over generations and across cultures.”
Venue
2 Princess Street
Open / Operational
Fri. September 29th 2023
Holiday Inn Kingston-Waterfront, an IHG Hotel Kingston Ontario
In-Person Event
