| In 2003, decades of tension and oppression in the Darfur region of western Sudan came to a boil when the Sudanese Liberation Army took up arms against the Sudanese government. The government, in concert with the Janjaweed militia, was quick to respond with brutal measures: murdering, raping and razing villages. Though the nature of the conflict makes it difficult to measure its exact toll, it’s estimated that over 400,000 civilians have died and over 2 million people have been displaced from their homes in what the U.S. government has termed "genocide."
Aisha Bain, the deputy director at the Centre for the Prevention of Genocide, heard about massive streams of refugees leaving Sudan for eastern Chad in winter 2003. When her research revealed the atrocities being committed, she tried to alert the mainstream media, to no avail. She contacted Adam Shapiro and the two of them started raising funds to go to Darfur and provide the coverage that was lacking.
"The funding was so precarious that I didn’t find out I was going with them until two weeks before we left," remembers Jen Marlowe, the third member of the team that created the film Darfur Diaries: Message from Home and the book Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival. Both the book and the film are made up of selected Darfurian interviews and testimonies, giving voice to their first-person narratives.
Marlowe is in town this week for a film screening and book launch. You can meet her and learn more about the project on November 19 at 1:00 p.m., at the Beth Tzedec Congregation (1325 Glenmore Trail S.W.).
You can also head north of the river for two events in Kensington. dANDelion magazine hosts a reading by Doug Barbour and rob mclennan, a pair of eminent Canadian poets from Edmonton and Ottawa. They’ll be weaving words and wowing crowds at the Oolong Tea House on Thursday, November 16 at 6:30 p.m.
Your final temptation for this busy Thursday night is Single Onion Poetry Night #49, hosted by Fred Hollis and featuring Red Deer poet Birk Sproxton, curator of the International Festival of Animated Objects Xstine Cook and Onion member Karen Mervyn. The night is rounded out with music by the always-raucous Kris Demeanor, all at the Sola Café and Lounge on Thursday, November 16 at 7:00 p.m.
Multilinguists, don’t despair at the proliferation of Anglophone events, because this week marks the launch of TransLit Volume 7: An Anthology of Literary Translations. It contains 25 poems and short stories translated to or from Arabic, English, French, Papiamentu, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish. At the launch, you can mingle with authors and translators Maria Bandol, Carol Green, Richard Harrison, Maureen Ranson, Gilles Mossière, Antoine Sassine and Luis Torres. Join them for this celebration of language on Friday, November 17 at 7:00 p.m., at ArtFirm (617-11th Avenue S.W.).
Gay detective Russell Quant returns in Anthony Bidulka’s fourth mystery novel, Stain of the Berry, where he must thwart the Boogeyman, a killer scaring Saskatoon locals to death. To delve deeper into enigma, head to McNally Robinson on Sunday, November 19 at 2:00 p.m.
Storyteller Aubrey Davis hits Fort Calgary this week with A Melon Grows in Kandahar, a storytelling tour of traditional Afghan folktales. The $15 cover charge benefits the Institute for Cross-Cultural Exchange, an organization that donates books containing Afghan tales to underprivileged children across Canada. His Calgary tour date is Monday, November 20 at 7:30 p.m.
In post-Second World War New Brunswick, Owen Jameson returns from service and takes over the family’s struggling lumber business amidst fierce competition, romantic entanglement and hazardous terrain. The Friends of Meager Fortune, award-winning author David Adams Richards’ latest, launches at McNally Robinson on Tuesday, November 21 at 7:00 p.m.
Double Governor General’s Award nominee Trevor Cole is in town with his latest book, The Fearsome Particles. Gerald Woodlore has troubles: his company is losing market share, his wife is buckling under the pressure of imitating happiness, and his son, just returned from the war in Afghanistan, refuses to leave his room. It’ll be a tender evening of family breakdown at Pages Books on Wednesday, November 22 at 7:30 p.m.
We close out the week with an Oscar nominee! Meg Tilly, known for her performances in Agnes of God and The Big Chill, is the author of Gemma, a book on child molestation and sexual abuse. The 12-year-old title character is kidnapped and taken on a disturbingly graphic journey, until her captor is arrested and she must face the choice of speaking at his trial. Learn more at McNally Robinson on Wednesday, November 22 at 7:00 p.m. |
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