Inspire - Toronto International Book Fair

Hindi Writers' Guild

Anindo Hazra & Ted Goossen (seated) with other participants

Sheniz Janmohamed

Inspire – the first Toronto International Book Fair was a major success, both in terms of the participation of authors, publishers and readers.

The three-day festival saw some big name authors discuss their work, they included the perennial favourites such as Margaret Atwood, and also rising stars such as David Bezmozgis.

The festival attracted 400 authors, and thanks to my friend Meenakshi Alimchandani, who was part of the organizing team, I had the privilege of being associated with the festival, facilitating the readings of Canadian South Asian authors.

The authors who read at the South Asian kiosk included Cheran, Cheryl Antao-Xavier, Kumkum Ramchandani, Braz Menezes, Farheen Khan, Samreen Ahsan, Vicky Bismillah, Kwai Li and Fong Hsiyng, Meena Chopra, Tula Goenka, Jasmine Sawant, Sheniz Janmohamed, Anindo Hazra, Pushpa Acharya and the Hindi Writers’ Guild led by Shailja Saksena. Eminent diplomat and author Navtej Sarna also read from his works, but at a different venue at the sprawling Metro Toronto Convention Centre.

The festival gave me an opportunity to meet and make friends. I met the suave Antanas Sileika, who gifted me a copy of his novel Underground; and I also met the enterprising Robert Morgan of Bookland Press.

South Asian panel
{l to r: Jasmine, Anosh, Manjushree, Anirudh, Priscilla (at mike)}

The main South Asian event at the festival was the collaboration between Inspire and the Jaipur Festival. The panel comprised AnirudhBhattacharyya, a veteran journalist-turned novelist; Manjushree Thapa, novelist; Anosh Irani, novelist; Jasmine D’Costa, novelist; Priscilla Uppal, poet, moderated the readings.

Anirudh read from his debut novel The Candidate, which is a breezy satire on the crazier than Rob Ford world of Indian politics. Anosh Irani read from Dahanu Road, and Jasmine D’Costa read from her collection of short stories Curry is Thicker than Water. Manjushree Thapa read from her new novel  Seasons of Flight.

Here’s an excerpt from Manjushree’s novel:

Being Nepali

An American woman, a schoolteacher, earnest and frizzy, once came up to Prema and asked, ‘Mind if I ask where you’re from? Originally, I mean?’ But when she heard the answer she just stammered, unable, perhaps, to admit that she didn’t know where that was.

Most Americans did better. They would say, ‘Oh’ or ‘Wow’ or even ‘Cool’ and nod in a friendly manner. Sometimes Prema would help them out by adding, ‘It is near India,’ or ‘Where Mount Everest is’ or ‘You heard of the Sherpas?” so that they might say, ‘Geez, that’s real far,’ or ‘I could have sworn you were Mexican / Italian / Spanish,’ or ‘You speak very good English.’ And then she would smile: ‘Thank you.’

Every now and then, though a response would stop her. One day, a woman on the bust heard her say Nippon and expressed her disgust at the practice of eating raw fish: ‘That’s like eating you-know-what!’ she exclaimed. Another man, a dark-skinned grocer, South Asian himself, baffled her with, ‘Aren’t you usually from Pakistan?’ It was Prema’s turn to stammer. She had also learnt that to the foreign ear, the country’s name could sound like ‘nipple’. More commonly, though, what Americans heard was Naples, as in: ‘I love pasta,’ or ‘My husband and I went to Rome for our honeymoon, but we never made it to Naples.’ 

Meeting writers

MG Vassanji, Dionne Brand, Olive Senior, Nurjehan Aziz, Priscila Uppal, Jasmine D’Costa, Tasleem Thawar, Dawn Promislow.

There were more writers per square foot at The Gladstone Hotel last Tuesday at Tsar’s annual book launch than I had seen in a long time.

And so many others that I didn’t know. Not that I know all of those I've listed here.

It was my first visit to Gladstone. I can't think of an equivalent institution in Mumbai.

I wanted to hear Sheema Khan read from her Hockey and Hijab – a book that has become a talking point everywhere in Toronto. She wasn’t there, but there were many other – equally interesting – writers.

I particularly liked the short passage Tasleem Thawar read from her work published in Her Mother's Ashes 3 (edited by Nurjehan Aziz), the translation by Chelva Kanaganayakam of a Tamil poem and Olive Senior’s passage from her book Arrival of the Snake-Woman.

For me the highpoint of the event was to be able to exchange a few guarded words with MG Vassanji. And to meet Dionne Brand. I went up to both of them and introduced myself.

Believe me, that is unusual; even though I sometimes do come across as a shameless self-promoter.

Thankfully, Vassanji remembered me. It'd have been rather embarrassing if he didn't. He's generally reticent, I guess. So exchanging a few pleasantries with him, especially after he had just won the Governor General’s prize for non-fiction, should count as a major achievement.

I told Brand that I had written about her book A Map to the Door of No Return (Notes to Belonging) on this blog and that I hadn’t read a more succinct explanation of VS Naipaul’s lifelong anxiety as a writer than her's. Brand said she had read my blog recently. That should count as another major achievement. Brand is Toronto's poet laureate.

Dawn Promislow introduced me to Olive Senior. I told her about my discovery of the Indo-Caribbean culture in Canada. Jasmine D’Costa introduced me to Fraser Sutherland, an editor of literary works and to Mariellen Ward, whose Hindi is as beautiful as she is.

A young woman walked up to me and asked whether I was a poet. I answered, “Yes. All my submissions have been rejected so far.” She laughed. I laughed, too. What can’t be cured has to be endured.

Everyone had a great time.

Image: Book Covers + Adobe Photoshop

Festival of South Asian Literature & Arts

The Toronto South Asian Review (TSAR) organised a conference of writers of South Asian origin from the Indian subcontinent, the Caribbean and South and East Africa in 1983.

It was a breakthrough event that formalised a genre in Canada. The conference resulted in a slim yet seminal volume A Meeting of Streams: South Asian Canadian Literature, edited by MG Vassanji.

Last week (September 25 and 26) TSAR commemorated the ’83 conference by celebrating FSALA – the Festival of South Asian Literature and the Arts.

My sole purpose of going to the event was to meet MG Vassanji. I met him briefly and introduced myself. He was too busy with the festival.

Priscila Uppal, Ameen Merchant, Padma Viswanathan and Shyam Selvadurai were the speakers that evening.

The poems Uppal read were fascinating, especially the one about her mother’s family. It had a memorable line of women in her mother’s family being unhappy in different languages.

Selvadurai’s story of the troubled relationship between his mother and grandmother was searing.

It had an unforgettable scene of his mother collecting coins that his grandmother had deliberately strewn across from the floor.

Then the narrator starkly concludes, “At 29 my mother’s life had ended.”

Backbreaking housework kept me away from the next morning’s sessions.

I did attend the evening session because I wanted to hear Bapsi Sidhwa. She read a passage from Ice Candy Man (now called Cracking India).

Deepa Mehta’s fantastic film Earth is based on this novel.

Anosh Irani and Tahira Naqvi were the other writers who read from their works.

The evening concluded with inDance’s exquisite dance performance The King’s Salon. I don't understand Bharatnatyam. I didn't need to. It was exquisite.