Join us for an evening with Mariam Pirbhai\, fiction writer and academic as s he discusses her new novel\, Isolated Incident\, recently featured on the fro nt page of the Waterloo Region&rsquo\;s The Record\, for its ground-breaki ng depiction of &ldquo\;a community under siege but rarely given voice.&rd quo\;
\nMariam Pirbhai is an award-winning author of a debut novel\, Isolated Incident and a short story collection\, Outside People and Other Stories. She is Professor of English in the Department of E nglish and Film Studies at Wilfrid Laurier U niversity where she specializes in postcolonial studies and creative w riting. Pirbhai is the daughter of Pakistani immigrants whose arrival in C anada followed a circuitous route from England\, the United Arab Emirates and the Philippines. She is currently working on a book of creative nonfic tion that combines nature writing and memoir\, and is based on her experie nces as an &ldquo\;é\;migré\;-settler&rdquo\; in Waterloo\, On tario.
\nIsolated Incident\, award-winning author Mariam Pi rbhai&rsquo\;s debut novel\, depicts the disturbing rise in hate-crimes di rected at Canadian Muslims\, while also calling into question issues of la nd and belonging for both immigrant and settler. Will the children of Sout h Asian immigrants\, like Kashif Siddiqui\, be able to cultivate a new rel ationship to what is at once an Indigenous and colonized land\, even as th ey are\, themselves\, under attack for their difference and their beliefs? Pirbhai enters provocative new territory in Canadian literature\, calling attention to the way questions of faith and community\, migration and cit izenship\, intolerance and Islamophobia\, are central to the political and social tenor of our times.
\nThis program is presented in partnersh ip with Words Worth Books.\n
Programmer: Nancy
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