53. The Conversations

In back-to-back conversations with three international authors, novelist and poet Aislinn Hunter probes the writing life and questions about love, intergenerational bonds, and possibility. Award-winning author Myriam J. A. Chancy shares an extraordinary and enduring story of two families—forever joined by country and secrets—in Village Weavers. Booker Prize-winner Anne Enright speaks to her latest work, The Wren, The Wren which astounded critics across the globe with its breathtaking portrayal of love between mother and daughter and the glorious resilience of women. Jón Kalman Stefánsson is one of Iceland’s most beloved novelists whose latest, Your Absence Is Darkness, spellbinds in a saga about a rural community and ponders the violence of fate. Moderated by Aislinn Hunter.

Presented in partnership with SFU’s Department of World Languages and Literatures.

Anne Enright’s attendance made possible thanks to the generous support of Culture Ireland.

This event is open to everyone, and has been curated with the Pro-D day for teachers in mind. Teachers may be interested in the following information. This event is also suitable for students in grades 10–12.
Themes: Pro-D, literary fiction, historical fiction, creative writing, storytelling
Curriculum Connections: Creative Writing 10–12, Literary Studies 10-12

More information about the Festival:
Box Office | Accessibility | Venue Map

Event Participants:

Myriam J. A. Chancy

MYRIAM J.A. CHANCY, award-winning author of What Storm, What Thunder, is a Haitian-Canadian-American writer, the HBA Chair in the Humanities at Scripps College in Claremont, California and a Fellow of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.

Anne Enright

ANNE ENRIGHT won the Man Booker Prize and the Irish Fiction Award for her novel The Gathering. She has published two books of stories and her most recent novel was the internationally acclaimed The Forgotten Waltz, awarded the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Anne Enright lives in Dublin.

Anne Enright’s attendance made possible thanks to the generous support of Culture Ireland.

Aislinn Hunter

AISLINN HUNTER is an award-winning novelist, poet, and educator, and the author of eight books including the novel The Certainties (Knopf 2020). She lives on the unceded lands of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.

Jón Kalman Stefánsson

JÓN KALMAN STEFÁNSSON’s novels have been nominated three times for the Nordic Council Prize for Literature and his novel Summer Light, and then Comes the Night received the Icelandic Prize for Literature in 2005. In 2011 he was awarded the prestigious P. O. Enquist Award. His books include Heaven and Hell; The Sorrow of Angels, longlisted for the Independent Foreign Fiction Prize; The Heart of Man, winner of the Oxford-Weidenfeld Translation Prize; and Fish Have No Feet, which was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize. His latest book in English is Your Absence is Darkness. He lives in Reykjavík, Iceland.