CKCU Literary News
Wednesday January 12th, 2022 with Hans G. Ruprecht & Friederike Knabe
Six internationally acclaimed and award-winning writers read in context: Sadiqa de Meijer, Flavia Cosma, Joséphine Bacon, Norma Dunning, Esi Edugyan and Mohamed Mbougar Sarr.

🔻Sadiqa de Meijer is a poet and writer of short stories and essays. She has written the poetry collections Leaving Howe Island and The Outer Wards. Her work has won the CBC Poetry Prize and Arc’s Poem of the Year Contest and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award, the Pat Lowther Memorial Award and the Raymond Souster Award. Her work has been published in Poetry Magazine, the Walrus, Brick Magazine and Poetry London, among other journals, as well as several anthologies, including The Next Wave, Villanelles and The Best of Canadian Poetry. Sadiqa de Meijer lives with her family in Kingston, Ontario. 🔹"alfabet/alphabet" is the record of Sadiqa de Meijer’s transition from speaking Dutch to English. Exploring ques­tions of identity, landscape, family, and translation, the essays navigate the shifting cultural currents of language by using an eclectic approach to storytelling. As such, fellow linguistic migrants to anglophone Canada will recog­nize elements of their experience in alfabet/alphabet, while lifelong English speakers will perceive their mother tongue in a new light. Credit: https://ggbooks.ca/alfabet-alphabet-a-memoir-of-a-first-language 🔻Flavia Cosma is a Canadian poet, author and translator of Romanian origin, with 27 books of poetry, a novel, a travel memoir and 5 children’s books. Her work appears in numerous anthologies in various languages, and her book 47 Poems received the ALTA Richard Wilbur Poetry in Translation Prize. Previous books are The Fire that Burns Us, Fairy Tales by Flavia Cosma, and Wormwood Wine. Her most recent books are Temps de moisson, préface de Louis-Philippe Hébert (Éditions du CYGNE, Paris, 2021) and IN THE ARMS OF THE FATHER, Poems (Červená Barva Press, Sommerville (Mass. USA) 2021. She is the Director of the International Writers’ and Artists’ Residence at Val-David, Quebec, the Director of the Biannual International Festivals at Val-David, and the International Editor for Cervená Barva Press, Somerville, Massachussets. Visit http://www.flaviacosma.com Credit: https://madhat-press.com/pages/flavia-cosma 🔻Joséphine Bacon is a poet and filmmaker from Pessamit, an Innu community on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River. Writing in both Innu-aimun and French, she’s earned critical acclaim for publications such as Nous sommes tous des sauvages (2011) and Un thé dans la toundra/Nipishapui nete mushuat (2013), which was shortlisted for both a Governor General’s Literary Award and the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal. One of the first Indigenous women to work in NFB French Program, Bacon has collaborated with Maurice Bulbulian, Arthur Lamothe and Gilles Carle. Her own director credits include Tshishe Mishtikuashisht, Le petit grand européen: Johan Beetz (1997), a multi-textured reflection on Indigenous/settler relations. Credit: https://www.nfb.ca/about/ 🔻Norma Dunning https://www.nfb.ca/about/ Norma Dunning (born 1959) is an Inuit Canadian writer and assistant lecturer at the University of Alberta,[1] who won the Danuta Gleed Literary Award in 2018 for her short story collection Annie Muktuk and Other Stories.[2] In the same year, she won the Writers' Guild of Alberta's Howard O'Hagan Award for the short story "Elipsee", and was a shortlisted finalist for the City of Edmonton Book Award.[3] She published in 2020 a collection of poetry and stories entitled Eskimo Pie: A Poetics of Inuit Identity. Of Inuk descent, Dunning was born in Quebec and raised in a variety of towns as her father was a member of the Canadian military.[4] She is based in Edmonton, Alberta, where she completed her doctoral degree with Indigenous Peoples Education at the University of Alberta in June 2019.[4] Her story collection Tainna won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at the 2021 Governor General's Awards. Credit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_Dunning 🔻Esi Edugyan A graduate of Johns Hopkins University and the University of Victoria, Esi Edugyan was raised in Calgary, Alberta. She is also the author of Half-Blood Blues, Dreaming of Elsewhere, and Washington Black, which was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust, and Man Booker Prizes, and won the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize. She has held fellowships in the US, Scotland, Iceland, Germany, Hungary, Finland, Spain, and Belgium. She lives in Victoria, British Columbia. 🔸 Out of the Sun On Race and Storytelling Series: The CBC Massey Lectures Written by: Esi Edugyan More> https://houseofanansi.com/products/out-of-the-sun 🔻Mohamed Mbougar Sarr is the author of the 2021 Prix Goncourt-winning novel The Most Secret Memory of Men (La Plus Secrète Mémoire des Hommes) Mbougar Sarr is a young Senegalese author who grew up outside Dakar and moved to Paris to continue his studies. At just 31, he has already published three other novels, his first in 2015: Encircled Earth (Terre Ceinte), Silence of the Choir (Silence du Chœur) and Pure Men (De Purs Hommes).  Credit: https://www.britannica.com/story/mohamed-mbougar-sarr-senegalese-novelists-win-is-a-landmark-for-africanliterature