Description
The American and Canadian Studies Centre is delighted to welcome Canadian writers Ann Eriksson and Gary Geddes to the University for a joint reading followed by an open discussion.According to Pablo Neruda, 'Political poetry is more deeply emotional than any other except love poetry. You must havetraversed the whole of poetry before you become a political poet.' Neruda’s words apply equally to fiction and non-fiction: to write well about civic, public, domestic and internal issues, you have to have forded the rivers that lead you to these places.
Gary Geddes and Ann Eriksson have made these journeys, Eriksson to the damage and grief associated with fraud, toxicity, homelessness and environmental degradation; Geddes to guilt and pain associated with crime, dictatorship, genocide and war. And yet they have both achived what Jean-Paul Sartre considered necessary: presented these troubling realities with “an essential lightness,” constructing works of art that are not only deeply moving, but also charged with sensory detail and engaging characters.
Eriksson’s most recent novels are Falling from Grace, High Clear Bell of Morning and The Performance; Geddes’s recent works include two books of poetry, What Does A House Want? and The Resumption of Play and two works of non-fiction: Drink the Bitter Root: A search for justice and healing in Africa and Medicine Unbundled: A Journey Through the Minefields of Indigenous Health Care.
| Period | 2 May 2018 |
|---|---|
| Degree of Recognition | International |