Every year as the TIFF dust settles, a different Toronto arts clique unfurls the red carpet to welcome its own VIP crowd. The International Festival of Authors (Oct. 22 to Nov. 1) is the week of the literati, when celebrated wordsmiths the world over descend on Harbourfront for readings, book signings, interviews and lots of schmoozing. Want to schmooze with some bookworms? We’ve picked five hot tickets.
Ken Dryden & Steven Pinker
This opening night, PEN Canada benefit event on Oct. 22 features a pair of big-name, big-brained Canadians discussing — what else? — the brain. Psychologist Steven Pinker and Hockey-Hall-of-Famer/politician Ken Dryden will bring their distinct perspectives to bear on questions about our grey matter. Among other topics, like human violence and aggression, they’ll weigh in on the writer’s narrative instinct, having both published many acclaimed books including Dryden’s classic behind-the-scenes hockey tome, The Game, and Pinker’s bestselling discourse on evolutionary psychology, How the Mind Works.
Super Truths Roundtable
Brent Bambury will moderate this Oct. 24 discussion between three authors who work in different mediums but share a common sensibility: the surreal. Canadian Tim Conley writes short stories brimming with an absurd humour that the Globe and Mail (reluctantly) referred to as “Kafkaesque.” Toronto-based illustrator Jillian Tamaki, who shot to fame with the graphic novel Skim, recently released SuperMutant Magic Academy, which documents the daily lives of teens who happen to be mutants and witches. Brit Sarah Winman rounds out the trio of authors with her novel, A Year of Marvellous Ways, which flits back and forth between fantasy and reality.
At Language’s Edge: Poetry in Translation
This event, on Oct. 25, unites the two themes of this year’s IFOA: the literature of Catalonia and poetry from across the globe. In a roundtable discussion, four celebrated poets — two Canadians and two Catalans — will share their experiences of the art of translation and how it has affected their work. Both Anna Aguilar-Amat and Martí Sales are giants of the Barcelona writing world, with accolades too numerous to list, and Montrealers Oana Avasilichioaei and Erin Mouré are prize-winning mainstays of our national poetry scene.
25th Anniversary of Writers & Company
It’s been 25 years since Writers & Company launched on the CBC with Eleanor Wachtel at its helm, and the weekly broadcast is still going strong. Since the show is more or less a year-round IFOA, it is fitting that Wachtel will celebrate the milestone onstage at this year’s festival, on Oct. 25, where she’ll showcase her interview chops in conversation with Aleksandar Hemon, Caryl Phillips, Zadie Smith and more.
‘Membering: A Celebration of Austin Clarke
Close out your festival experience with some nostalgia. Austin Clarke has just entered his fifth decade as a published writer with the release of his memoir, ‘Membering. In it, he documents his childhood in Barbados and his early adulthood in Toronto and later Harlem, where he meets and interviews legendary African-American writers and thinkers like Malcolm X and Amiri Baraka. A cluster of writers, including George Elliott Clarke, Lawrence Hill and of course, Austin Clarke himself, “Canada’s first multicultural writer,” will be on hand to read from the memoir and pay tribute.
