Passages: Welcome Home to Canada (24 page)

BOOK: Passages: Welcome Home to Canada
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M
ICHELLE
B
ERRY
was born in San Francisco, California, and was raised in Victoria, British Columbia. She is the author of two collections of short stories,
How to Get There From Here
(1997) and
Margaret Lives in the Basement
(1998), and two novels,
What We All Want
(2001) and
Blur
(2002). Along with Natalee Caple, Berry co-edited the anthology,
The Notebooks: Interviews and New Fiction from Contemporary Writers
. In addition to her writing, she teaches at Ryerson University, reviews for
The Globe and Mail
, and served for four years on the board of PEN Canada.

Y
ING
C
HEN
was born in Shanghai and emigrated to Montreal in 1989. She has published four major works in French,
Memory of Water
(1992),
Chinese Letters
(1993),
Ingratitude
(1995), and
Immobile
(1998).
Ingratitude
was nominated for the Governor General’s Award and the Prix Femina, and received the Quebec-Paris prize, as well as the Grand Reader’s Prize from
Elle Quebec
. It has been translated into English, Spanish, Italian, and Polish.

R
UDYARD
G
RIFFITHS
is a founding member and the executive director of the Dominion Institute, a national charity dedicated to the promotion of Canadian history and civics. He has written
extensively on the themes of Canadian history, identity and cultures for
The Globe and Mail, The National Post
and
Maclean’s. Passages
is the second book the Dominion Institute has published with Doubleday Canada. It follows
Story of a Nation
(2001).

M
ICHAEL
I
GNATIEFF
is the director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University. Concerned with ethnic war, he has travelled to Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia, Rwanda, and Afghanistan, and has written extensively on ethnic war and the unique responsibilities it imposes. His non-academic work includes
The Russian Album, A Family Memoir
, which won the Governor General’s Award and the Heinemann Prize of Britain’s Royal Society of Literature in 1988, and
Scar Tissue
, which was short-listed for the Booker Prize in 1993.

B
RIAN
D. J
OHNSON
is an award-winning journalist who serves as senior entertainment writer and film critic at
Maclean’s
magazine. His non-fiction books include
Brave Films, Wild Nights: 25 Years of Festival Fever
. He has also published a novel,
Volcano Days
, and a book of poetry,
Marzipan Lies
. He lives in Toronto with his wife, Marni, and their son, Casey.

D
ANY
L
AFERRIÈRE
was born in the village of Petit Goave, Haiti. He wrote for
Le Petit Samedi Soir
and worked for Radio-Haiti International until he was forced to emigrate to Quebec in the late 1970s. He has published a number of novels,
among them:
How to Make Love to a Negro Without Getting Tired
(1987),
An Aroma of Coffee
(1993),
Dining With the Dictator
(1994), and
A Drifting Year
(1997). He has received many prizes for his writing, notably the Carbet de la Caribe Prize, and the Edgar-Lesperance Prize.

A
LBERTO
M
ANGUEL
was born in Buenos Aires, and worked in publishing in Italy, France, England, and Tahiti before arriving in Canada in the early 1980s. Manguel began his distinguished career with the first edition of
The Dictionary of Imaginary Places
(1980).
A History of Reading
was published in 1998, and was awarded France’s prestigious Prix Médicis. Manguel is also the author of
Reading Pictures
(2000). He is recognized as an accomplished editor, translator, anthologist, essayist, and novelist.

A
NNA
P
ORTER
was born in Hungary. Her family settled in New Zealand after the 1956 Revolution. She began her publishing career in England, then moved to Canada in 1968. Anna Porter is publisher of Key Porter Books, and is one of Canada’s most respected publishing professionals. She is the author of three crime novels:
Hidden Agenda, Mortal Sins
, and
The Bookfair Murders
, which was made into a movie. Her most recent book,
The Storyteller: Memory, Secrets, Magic and Lies
, is a non-fiction account of the story of Hungary and of Porter’s family. An Officer of the Order of Canada, Anna Porter lives in Toronto with her husband and two daughters.

N
INO
R
ICCI
was born near Leamington, Ontario, to parents who had only recently emigrated from Italy. His
Lives of the Saints
(1990) won the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the SmithBooks/Books in Canada First Novel Award, and the F.G. Bressani Prize. The novel was also a national bestseller, and was followed by the highly acclaimed
In a Glass House
(1993) and
Where She Has Gone
(1997), which was a finalist for the Giller Prize. Nino Ricci lives in Toronto. His most recent novel is
Testament
.

S
HYAM
S
ELVADURAI
was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka. His family moved to Canada in 1983. Sevadurai’s first novel,
Funny Boy
, was published in 1994 and received the W.H. Smith/Books in Canada First Novel Award. His second novel,
Cinnamon Gardens
, was published in 1998. He lives in Toronto.

M.G. V
ASSANJI
was born in Kenya and raised in Tanzania. Before coming to Canada in 1978, he attended M.I.T., and later was writer in residence at the University of Iowa. Vassanji is the author of four acclaimed novels:
The Gunny Sack
(1989), which won a regional Commonwealth Prize;
No New Land
(1991);
The Book of Secrets
(1994), which won The Giller Prize; and
Amriika
(1999). He was awarded the Harbourfront Festival Prize in 1994 in recognition of his achievement in and contribution to the world of letters, and was in the same year chosen as one of twelve Canadians on
Maclean’s
Honour Roll.

K
EN
W
IWA
is the son of murdered Nigerian writer, journalist, and human rights activist, Ken Saro-Wiwa. During his father’s incarceration and trial, Ken Wiwa travelled the world, tirelessly lobbying world leaders, writing, speaking, and campaigning for his father and the Ogoni people. His memoir,
In the Shadow of a Saint
(2000), chronicles these experiences. Ken Wiwa moved to Toronto with his wife and son in May 1999. He is a former journalist and editor at
The Guardian
, writes for
The Globe and Mail
, and is a senior resident writer at Massey College, University of Toronto.

M
OSES
Z
NAIMER
was born in the former Soviet republic of Tajikistan during WW II. His family, having been driven from their homes by the advancing German armies, finally fled to Canada in 1948 from Stalin’s consolidation of the Soviet empire. Znaimer is co-founder, president and executive producer of Citytv, and is the creative force behind more than a dozen CHUM Television Specialty Channels including: MuchMusic, MuchMoreMusic, MusiquePlus, MusiMax, Bravo!, Space, CablePulse24, Canadian Learning Television, Star!, FashionTelevision, BookTelevision, Sextv, and CourtTV Canada.

BOOK: Passages: Welcome Home to Canada
13.58Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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