Join 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize finalist Dionne Irving and author Donna Bailey Nurse for this one-hour conversation.

Tomorrow, I interview Toronto born Dionne Irving whose collection The Islands was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Her stories feature women of Jamaican heritage whose lives unfold in cities across the diaspora: Here are some my thoughts ahead of our conversation.

The stories in Dionne Irving’s The Islands are quietly devastating. They are mysterious and subterranean in their accrual of meanings that prove as unsettling for her readers as they are for her characters. Epiphanies do not erupt out of the largely psychological action. Instead, insights are retroactive and hard-won and evolve over the passage of time, until a character’s personal past collides with collective history.

The first story, Florida Lives, opens with the words, “In hindsight,” directing us back to a time when the heroine was naive. Set in swampy, southern Florida, it follows the demise of a young marriage. The Jamaican wife’s light complexion is a trade-off for her dark-skinned husband’s education and American identity. But the transaction falls flat as cultural differences emerge, and the pair slide down the social ladder. Transaction is the operative word: Irving’s women navigate a claustrophobic, capitalist world in which they chiefly remain commodities.

The brilliance of this first story is representative of the entire collection. Throughout, Irving tackles the subject of intersectionality, illuminating its chaotic impact within and between her characters. For the most part, the racial whiteness of her settings serves as a screen against which her heroines’ lives play out.  Irving wittily uses grammar as a literary motif - (the Florida wife, for instance, describes her early marriage as “the past-imperfect”). She also chooses familiar words and phrases which explode into multiple meanings upon contact with the mind.  Indeed, the term immigration comes to symbolize various themes including failure and the wherewithal to begin again and again.

Please join us on Wednesday November 22 at Northern District Library at 7PM

Sages from Cicero to Oprah have told us that to heal our wounds forgiveness requires us to let go of negative emotions. In Failures of Forgiveness, philosopher and Director of the Emotion and Society Lab, Myisha Cherry argues that these beliefs couldn’t be more wrong—and that the ways we think about and use forgiveness, personally and as a society, can often do more harm than good. In conversation with Donna Bailey Nurse, she presents a new and healthier understanding of forgiveness—one that will give us a better chance to recover from wrongdoing and move toward “radical repair.”

Following the incredible success of Beloved last year, join Donna Bailey Nurse in conversation with leaders in the realm of music, theatre and history, as she explores words, music and the power of Black experience in Scott Joplin’s Treemonisha and Loss.

Two extraordinary productions premiere at this year's Luminato Festival: Loss by Ian Kamau and Treemonisha by Scott Joplin. Brainerd Blyden-Taylor, Artistic Director of The Nathaniel Dett Chorale and ahdri zhina mandiela, Founder of b current Performing Arts join Donna Bailey Nurse for a discussion of Words, Music and Black Experience.

In her debut novel, Finding Edward, Sheila Murray tells the story of a man who moves from Jamaica to Toronto in 2012, and experiences being racialized in a new land. As he searches for his own story, he uncovers hidden parts of Canada’s Black History.

Finding Edward has been called “one of the most penetrating dramas of Black experience in all of Canadian literature”, and it was a finalist for the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction. The book was also named one of the best works of Canadian fiction in 2022 by CBC Books, and is on the Canada Reads 2023 longlist.

Sheila Murray will appear in conversation with literary critic Donna Bailey Nurse, author of What's A Black Critic to Do II and the editor of Revival: An Anthology of Black Canadian Writing.

This year's Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Suzette Mayr will be joined by Donna Bailey Nurse for this one-hour conversation!

Everyone is welcome and registration is free.

Hosted by Nicky Lawrence and directed by Dian Marie Bridge, join leading Canadian curator and literary critic Donna Bailey Nurse, for an intimate conversation with Myriam J. A. Chancy (What Storm, What Thunder), Dawnie Walton (Final Revival of Opal & Nev), recipient of the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Aminatta Forna (The Memory of Love), and special guest appearance by two-time Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Esi Edugyan (Washington Black).

Join us as we honour the legacy of Toni Morrison and celebrate the unrivalled impact she has had on Black women writers around the world.

Hosted by Nicky Lawrence and directed by Dian Marie Bridge, join leading Canadian curator and literary critic Donna Bailey Nurse, for an intimate conversation with Zalika Reid-Benta (Frying Plantain), Rebecca Fisseha (Daughters of Silence), Francesca Ekwuyasi (Butter Honey Pig Bread) and special guest appearance by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia (The Son of the House) winner of the Nigerian Prize for Literature.

Join us as we honour the legacy of Toni Morrison and celebrate the unrivalled impact she has had on Black women writers around the world.

Led by critically acclaimed Black author Djanet Sears, this masterclass explores the genre of playwriting. Designed as an intimate and supportive experience, this masterclass connects local writers who are currently working on a piece with leading Black authors.

Led by critically acclaimed Black author Canisia Lubrin, this masterclass explores the genre of poetry. Designed as an intimate and supportive experience, this masterclass connects local writers who are currently working on a piece with leading Black authors.

Led by critically acclaimed Black author Lawrence Hill, this masterclass explores the genre of children’s novels. Designed as an intimate and supportive experience, this masterclass connects local writers who are currently working on a piece with leading Black authors.

Grandmothers Partnering with Africa are thrilled to present Nigerian/Canadian author, Francesca Ekwuyasi, in conversation with Donna Bailey Nurse, a well-known Canadian literary critic.

Please join us on Thursday, March 10, 2022 at 7pm EST for an in-depth talk about Francesca's celebrated debut novel Honey Butter Pig Bread.

The next Giller Book Club pick is The Son of the House by Cheluchi Onyemelukwe-Onuobia which was shortlisted for the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Here’s how you can participate:

1. Sign up for our newsletter to receive updates

2. Read The Son of the House by February 22, 2022

3. Register to attend the live interview on February 22, at 7 p.m. ET

4. Join The Giller Book Club Facebook group

5. Share a photo of you reading on social media using the hashtag #GillerBookClub and tag @gillerprize

6. Participate in the discussion questions on @gillerprize’s social channels

We hope that you will join us in reading The Son of the House and participate in the live Q&A on Tuesday, February 22, 2022, at 7 p.m. ET. Cheluchi will be interviewed by author and literary critic Donna Bailey Nurse.

The Giller Foundation, is pleased to announce the next Giller Power Panel. The February 15 event will celebrate Black History Month and is entitled AfriCanLit: Contours & Conflicts.

The panel will take place over Zoom on Tuesday, February 15, at 7 p.m. ET. Details and registration can be found at scotiabankgillerprize.ca/giller-power-panels.

The Giller Power Panels pull together creatives with a moderator each month to discuss the intersection of literature and other cultural and political expressions.

The February 15 panel will focus on writers’ craft, the relationship between art, community and politics, and some of the interesting debates/discussions happening within contemporary Black life.

Populating the February panel are authors Donna Bailey Nurse, Antonio Michael Downing, Francesca Ekwuyasi, and H. Nigel Thomas.

Scott Fraser, publisher and president of Dundurn Press, will moderate the panel.

Butter Honey Pig Bread (Arsenal Pulp) an outstanding debut by Francesca Ekwuyasi was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. This extraordinary novel about an ailing Nigerian woman and her twin daughters calls to mind Helen Oyeyemi's The Opposite House, Diana Evan's 26a and Ben Okri's The Famished Road. Donna talks to Francesca Ekwuyasi about Butter Honey Pig Bread for the Giller Book Club on Monday, August 16 at 7 pm.

Draw on American novelist and essayist Marilynne Robinson’s 40 years of award-winning writing that began with Housekeeping in 1980. In 2020, Robinson returns to the world of Gilead with Jack, the fourth novel in the series. Hear about the novels that are a vital contribution to contemporary American literature, and what went in to creating them.

National Magazine award-winning writer and folklorist Emily Urquhart is the bestselling author of Beyond the Pale: Folklore, Family and the Mystery of our Hidden Genes. Her latest book, The Age of Creativity: Art, Memory, My Father and Me paints a moving portrait of a father, the artist Tony Urquhart, their relationship and a case for late-stage creativity. Learn more about this eagerly anticipated memoir, shortlisted for the Allan Slaight Prize for Journalism, through this intimate conversation with Urquhart.

Winner of the 2019 Man Booker prize, Bernardine Evaristo discusses her latest novel, Girl, Woman, Other, an essential text on race and feminism. Filled with wit and emotion, Girl, Woman, Other centres the voices we often see othered, and shows us a side of Britain we rarely see.

Bernardine Evaristo is appearing in conversation with Canadian author and journalist, Donna Bailey Nurse.

This event is part of Toronto Public Library’s (TPL) Live & Online series and is the virtual version of TPL’s Appel Salon.