Barrett and Welsh, unit 301
You are invited to the 21st session of The Tartan Turban Secret Readings featuring Nedra Rodrigo, Con Cú (Ian Thomas Shaw), Concetta Principe, Indran Amirthanayagam and Mariam Pirbhai reading on the theme Travels and Journeys.
Nedra Rodrigo is a translator, workshop organizer and, occasionally, arts educator for youth in the York Region District School Board. She is a founder of the Tamil Studies Symposium at York University, where she is also developing an archive of Tamil Resources. She has translated poetry by R. Cheran, V.I.S. Jayapalan and Puthuvai Ratnathurai, Rashmy, and prose by Kuna Kaviyazhakan and Thamizhini. Her essays have been published in the International Journal of the Humanities, Global Tensions, Global Possibilities; Human Rights and the Arts: Essays on Global Asia; Kalam; and Studies in Canadian Literature. She was shortlisted for the Global Humanities Translation Prize in 2017, and received a 2019 Canada Council for the Arts award to translate the work of Tamil Canadian novelist Devakanthan, to be published by Mawenzi House next year. Her translation of the Thamizhini memoir In the Shadow of a Sharpened Sword, is also slated for publication in 2020 by SAGE/Yoda Press. She is the host of the quarterly bilingual, inclusive literary event the Tam Fam Lit Jam.
Ian Thomas Shaw is a Canadian novelist, who also writes under the pen name Con Cú (owl in Vietnamese), a nickname given to him by a Vietnamese friend, whose stories about her childhood in Vietnam and coming to Canada as a refugee inspired his first novel, Soldier, Lily, Peace and Pearls (Deux Voiliers, 2011). Born in Vancouver, Ian has worked as a diplomat and international development worker for the last 34 years, living in Africa, the Middle East and Europe. He currently lives in Aylmer, Quebec. His second novel, Quill of the Dove (Guernica, 2019), is a blend of literary fiction and political thriller set against the Lebanese Civil War and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ian is an active member of the Canadian literary community, serving as the President of the Ottawa Independent Writer from 2015 to 2018 and founding Deux Voiliers Publishing, the Prose in the Park Literary Festival and the Ottawa Review of Books. He is a member in good standing of The Writers' Union of Canada, the Quebec Writers Federation and the Ottawa Independent Writers.
Concetta Principe is a writer of poetry, non-fiction and fiction. She has also published scholarship on Lacan, trauma and culture. Her latest publication is a chapbook of poems with Frog Hollow Press titled Conversion - or a Theory (2019). Her most recent book-length collection of poems This Real (Pedlar Press) was long-listed for the League of Canadian Poets’ Raymond Souster Award in 2018. She has three other books of poetry, the first of which won the Bressani Award for poetry in 2001, a book of fiction, and an academic monograph. Her creative work has appeared in a variety of literary journals including The Malahat Review, Matrix, Grain, The Capilano Review and is forthcoming in Hamilton Arts and Literature Review. She currently teaches literature, theory and creative writing at Trent University.
Indran Amirthanayagam is a Sri Lankan-American essayist, translator and poet-diplomat. He lives in Rockville, Maryland and works for the US Foreign Service. Indran writes or translates poetry and essays in English, Spanish, French, Portuguese and Haitian Creole. His Spanish collections include El Infierno de los Pajaros (Resistencia, Mexico City), El Hombre que Recoge Nidos (CONARTE/Resistencia, Mexico), Sol Camuflado (Lustra Editores, Lima, May 2011), Sin Adorno, lirica para tiempos neobarrocos (Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo León, Mexico, 2013). and Ventana Azul, (El Tapiz del Unicornio, 2016). His first collection in French was Aller-retour au bord de la mer (Legs Editions, 2014). He has also published The Splintered Face (Hanging Loose Press, 2008) and Ceylon R.I.P. (International Centre for Ethnic Studies, Sri Lanka, 2001). His poetic history of the Sri Lankan Civil War, Uncivil War, was published in 2013. Indran has read in many international poetry festivals from London to Lima. His book The Elephants Of Reckoning won the 1994 Paterson Poetry Prize and his poem Juarez won the Juegos Florales of Guaymas, Sonora in 2006. Indran has received the Superior Honor Award and the Meritorious Honor Award from the Department of State for his diplomatic work. Indran joins us via Skype.
Mariam Pirbhai is Professor of English in the Department of English and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier University, specializing in postcolonial and diaspora studies. She was recently President of the Canadian Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies, Canada’s largest and oldest postcolonial studies association. Mariam’s debut short story collection, Outside People and Other Stories (Inanna, 2017) won the 2018 IPPY Gold Medal for Multicultural Fiction and was ranked among CBC’s top ten “must reads” of 2017. She is the author and editor of several academic works on the global South Asian diaspora, including Mythologies of Migration, Vocabularies of Indenture: Novels of the South Asian Diaspora in Africa, the Caribbean, and Asia-Pacific (University of Toronto Press, 2009), Critical Perspectives on Indo-Caribbean Women’s Literature (Routledge, 2013), and a special commemorative issue titled South Asian Canadian Literature: A Centennial Journey. Her current projects include a first novel on Islamophobia as it impacts a diverse cast of characters in Toronto and Montreal, home to the country’s largest Muslim populations. Mariam is the daughter of Pakistani immigrants. She and her husband, a Guatemalan émigré, live and work in Waterloo, Ontario.
To book a seat (it's free), visit our Eventbrite page at: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/tartan-turban-secret-readings-21-tickets-70405297139
Open mic: Anyone attending is welcome to read or perform (if you are a musician) in our open mic sessions. If you are a writer or musician who would like to perform in the open mic session, we ask that you listen in to at least one session to get the flavour of the evening and join in on your next visit. To participate in TTSR #21 please contact Nedra Rodrigo the evening's curator (or series curators Gavin or Mayank) — beforehand as this will allow her to line up readers and manage the evening efficiently. There are detailed open mic guidelines posted in our FB group. Open mic readers who have published works they would like to offer for sale are free to mention it on finishing their readings.