Take an international journey with these razor-sharp novels that offer up stunning storylines, while shedding light on significant political conflicts and acts of resistance around the world. Sheung-King’s Batshit Seven follows a disaffected millennial living through the Hong Kong protests, in a darkly funny indictment of the cycles of imperialism. Maria Reva brings us to Ukraine in her raved-about debut novel, Endling, where a snail researcher and her sisters go on a search for their missing mother—and come face-to-face with the Russian invasion instead. Jeremy Tiang tells interlocking stories of leftist movements and political detentions in Singapore and Malaysia, uncovering decades of the region’s history in State of Emergency. Moderated by Renée Sarojini Saklikar.
Presented in partnership with SFU’s Department of World Languages and Literatures and Peliplat.
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MARIA REVA was born in Ukraine and grew up in Canada. Her fiction has appeared in The Atlantic, McSweeney's, The Best American Short Stories, and elsewhere, earning a National Magazine Award. She also works as an opera librettist.
RENÉE SAROJINI SAKLIKAR is the author of five books, including the award-winning Children of Air India and Listening to the Bees. Her work has appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies. She was Poet Laureate for the City of Surrey (2015-2018), co-founded Lunch Poems at SFU, and teaches Creative Writing at Douglas College. Bramah’s Discovery is the third volume of her epic fantasy in verse series, THOTJBAP,forthcoming with Nightwood Editions.
SHEUNG-KING's debut novel, You Are Eating an Orange. You Are Naked., was a finalist for the 2021 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction & the 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. His second book, Batshit Seven, won the 2024 Atwood-Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. He spends his time between Canada and China, where he works and teaches.
JEREMY TIANG is a novelist and playwright, and the translator of over thirty books from Chinese. He was awarded the Singapore Literature Prize for his novel State of Emergency and for his translation of Zhang Yueran's Cocoon, and he recently won an Obie Award for his play Salesman之死. Originally from Singapore, he now lives in New York City.
