Author Kath Jona than will discuss her latest book\, The Resistance Painter< /a>\, an evocative work of historical fiction\, examining the little known story of Poland's extraordinary WWII resistance army and the contemporary lives of two artists\, grandmother and granddaughter\, inextricably linke d by a wartime betrayal.
\nPresented in partnership with Words Worth Books.
\nThe Re sistance Painter is a gripping novel of wartime betrayal and survival. A G lobe and Mail and Toronto Star instant best seller\, it has been called "t imely and timeless" by Janet Sommerville in the Toronto Star and recommend ed on CBC radio and on CBC books. At the heart of this novel beats a quest ion as urgently relevant today as it was eighty-five years ago: How do we live with integrity and compassion in the middle of a war?
\nIn The Resistance Painter\, we meet Jo\, a young sculptor who specializes in inte rviewing dying people before she makes a highly stylized sculpture for the ir graves site. When her new client\, Stefan\, tells a life story eerily s imilar to her grandmother's wartime history\, Jo begins to dig for answers \, catapulting the novel back into Warsaw 1939 when her grandmother was a young woman faced with a brutal Nazi occupation.
\nIrena and her ded icated nurse sister\, Lotka\, must decide how to survive while helping the ir family\, friends and country. Irena joins the Polish resistance and bec omes expert at conducting people through the dangerous sewers of Warsaw. H er sister Lotka follows a different path. She becomes a respected nurse wh ose skill is much admired by the occupiers as well as the resistors.
\nLater\, Irena goes on to become a lauded painter whose stark\, tender a rtwork holds terrifying secrets\, while Jo discovers a voice and a family she never knew she had. Focused on finding the humanity in all its richly complex characters\, this is a layered story which uniquely manages to hol d all sides in suspension. In the space between All the Light We Cannot Se e and Warlight on one side\, and The Secret Keeper and The Secret History of Audrey James on the other\, The Resistance Painter offers a story of le sser known events in wartime Poland and a picture of life in multicultural Toronto where generations of survivors continue to live out the effects o f their wartime lives.
\nKath Jonathan&rsquo\;s first novel \, The Resistance Painter is an instant Toronto Star and Globe and Mail be stseller. Published by Simon and Schuster Canada\, the dual timeline histo rical novel is set in Toronto 2010 and Warsaw\, Poland 1939 to 1944. A poe t\, short story\, and novel writer\, her work has been short listed for th e Marina Nemat Award for outstanding manuscript\, has been a finalist for The Janice Colbert Poetry Award\, long listed for The Puritan&rsquo\;s Tho mas Morton Memorial Prize for short story\, and published in online litera ry magazines. A former teacher\, Kath has taught English in a literacy pro gram\, at a prison\, a high school and at colleges. She holds a Certificat e in Creative Writing as well as a Master&rsquo\;s degree in English Liter ature from the University of Toronto. Happy to call Toronto home\, Kath is also a twenty-year beginner level student of flamenco and tap dance.
\ nModerating will be Rachel McMillan. \;Rachel McMillan is the au thor of The Herringford and Watts mysteries\, The Van Buren and DeLuca mys teries\, The Three Quarter Time series\, The London Restoration and The Mo zart Code. Her non-fiction works including Dream Plan Go: A Travel Guide f or Independent Adventure and A Very Merry Holiday Movie Guide. Rachel live s in Toronto\, Canada and is always reading.
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