‘Skeena’ English edition launch in Vancouver
April 10
2 – 4 PM
Hellenic Community Centre
4500 Arbutus Street
Vancouver, B.C. V6J 4A2
Tel: 604-266-7148
www.helleniccommunity.org
Program
Book Launch ‘Vernal Equinox’
Poetry Reading by Manolis
Book Launch ‘Skeena’
Reading by Fauzia Rafique
Guest Speakers on ‘Skeena’
Anthony Dalton
Anne Murphy
Indira Prahst
Farah Mahrukh Coomi Shroff
Sunera Thobani
Event Host
Valerie B.-Taylor
‘Skeena’ is published by Libros Libertad, Surrey BC
The Punjabi Gurumukhi and Shahmukhi (Perso-Arabic script) editions of ‘Skeena’ will also be available at the launch.
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Anthony Dalton
Update: A Best Seller On our Hands:’Skeena’
Anthony Dalton is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and a Fellow of the Explorers Club. He is also National President of the Canadian Authors Association. The author of eleven non-fiction books on exploration and marine subjects, Anthony is a former professional expedition leader with years of experience in the Sahara, the deserts of the Middle East and in the Arctic. Anthony has stayed and traveled in South Asia, and is in the process of writing a novel based in Bangla Desh.
He is an Author, Public speaker, CAA National President, Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, Fellow of the Explorers Club; and, the Patron of Powell River Writers Conference
Anthony’s latest books are ‘Polar Bears’ (Heritage House), and ‘Arctic Naturalist’ (Dundurn Press).
Email: daltona@dccnet.com
More: anthonydalton.org
Manolis
Update: ‘Secularism is at the Center of Skeena’, April 29 press release by Libros Libertad
Manolis was born in the small village Kolibari west of Chania on the Greek island of Crete in 1947. At a young age, his family moved to Athens where he was educated. After serving in the armed forces for a couple of years, he emigrated to Vancouver in 1973.
After working as an iron worker, train labourer, taxi driver, and stock broker in Canada, he now lives in White Rock where he spends his time writing, gardening, and traveling.
He has written three novels, over ten collections of poetry, and has published short fiction and non fiction in Greek and in English.
Toward the end of 2006 he founded Libros Libertad, an unorthodox and independent publishing company in Surrey BC with the goal of publishing literary books.
Manolis will present readings from his new collection of poetry ‘Vernal Equinox’ (Ekstasis Editions, 2011), and from his translated work of ‘Yannis Ritsos – Poems’ (Libros Libertad, 2010)
Email: infolibroslibertad@shaw.ca
Blog: http://authormanolis.wordpress.com/
Website: http://libroslibertad.ca/
Anne Murphy
Update: Skeena, a Work of Art
Anne Murphy is Assistant Professor and Chair of Punjabi Language, Literature, and Sikh Studies at the University of British Columbia. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University’s Department of Religion and previously taught in the Religious Studies and Historical Studies Concentrations at The New School in New York City. Her research interests focus on the historical formation of religious communities in Punjab and northern South Asia, with particular but not exclusive attention to the Sikh tradition. She recently completed a book manuscript entitled Objects of Memory: Material Culture and the Representation of Sikh Pasts, which focuses on the construction of Sikh memory and historical consciousness around material representations and religious sites from the eighteenth century to the present. Other research interests concern modern Punjabi literature and the historical formations of social service or “seva” within Sikh tradition. She conducted research on the latter topic as a Senior Fellow with the American Institute of Indian Studies in 2009-2010, and recently received a grant for the project from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Email: amurphy2@interchange.ubc.ca
More: www.asia.ubc.ca
Indira Prahst
Indira Prahst is a full time professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at LangaraCollege. She is involved in research on youth violence, racism, human rights issues and violence against women. Prahst won the award for outstanding woman in culture from The Burns Bog awards, and is a recipient of the Langara College Leadership of Excellence Award. Prahst engages the community through her regular columns in Asian Journal and is also a host of “Asian Pulse TV.” Prahst sits on various committees including: Vice Chair of the Multicultural Advisory Committee for the City of Vancouver, heads the research team on alienation and gangs with the Acting Together Community University Research Alliance (SSHHRC-CURA) Project on youth and gang violence and is a member of South Asian Film Education Society.
email: iprahst@langara.bc.ca
More: www.langara.bc.ca
Fauzia Rafique
Fauzia is a South Asian Canadian writer of fiction and poetry. Her English and Punjabi writings have been published in Canada, Pakistan, and on the Web. Print titles include novel ‘Skeena’ (Punjabi, Lahore 2007) and anthology ‘Aurat Durbar’ (English, Toronto 1995).
She maintains sites and blogs on Punjabi literature and art, ‘honour-killings’, blasphemy laws, and the environment.
A selection of her English and Punjabi poetry ‘Passion-Fruit/Tahnget-Phal’ is due to come out in 2011.
Fauzia will read from the Punjabi edition of her novel ‘Skeena’.
Email: frafique@gmail.com
Blog: uddari.wordpress.com
More: http://gandholi.wordpress.com/
Farah Mahrukh Coomi Shroff
Update: Skeena by Fauzia Rafique
Farah’s name, in Arabic and Farsi, means joy. She finds joy in:
•her children, partner, friends and family;
•dance, yoga, movement, stillness
•reading, writing, thinking
•playing, being in nature
•exploring the world, particularly Asia, Latin America and the Middle East
•being part of social justice movements
•much more
Mahrukh is her mother’s name and she officially placed this as her middle name at age 8, after learning about the birds and the bees. In gratitude to one of her grandmothers, who is about to complete 101 years, her second middle name is Coomi. Her last name is her lasting tribute to her wonderful dad.
A Kenyan-born Parsi, her mother is from Mumbai and her father from Karachi; she embraces her South Asianness as fully as her Persian heritage. She loves Hafiz, Sanaii, Atar, Rumi and other poets, partly for the yogic perspectives which are embodied in their words, bridging South Asia and Persia.
She lives on beautiful unceded Musqueum land where she teaches at UBC in the Medical School, carries out research in public health and moves and shakes as much as she can.
Email: fms@ece.ubc.ca
More: www.villagevancouver.ca
And: www.familymed.ubc.ca/
Valerie B.-Taylor
Update: ‘A Page Turner From Beginning To End, novel Skeena’
Valerie is a writer, performer and a cultural activist. She has won various awards and competitions for her writings, performances and video productions.
She is the Coordinator of both New Westminster Writers Group and Renaissance Books Writers Group.
At this time, she is working on a romance novel, and coordinating and editing an anthology of writings of of over fifteen writers for New West Writers Group.
Email: vpa@telus.net
More: newwestwriters.wordpress.com/members/
Sunera Thobani
Sunera Thobani teaches in the Centre for Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of British Columbia. She is also the Director of the RAGA Centre. Sunera is a past-President of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Canada’s then largest feminist organization.
Author of ‘Exalted Subjects: Studies in the Making of Race and Nation in Canada’, published by the University of Toronto Press (2007).
Co-editor of two anthologies ‘Asian Women: Interconnections’ and ‘States of Race: Critical Race Feminism for the 21st Century’.
Email: sth@interchange.ubc.ca
More: www.ws.arts.ubc.ca
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Skeena 