BUY TICKETS
Sunday, November 2, 2014, 1 PM
Lakeside Terrace
235 Queens Quay West
Toronto M5J 2G8
Cost: $18/$15 supporters/FREE students & youth 25 and under
Join writers Ma Thida, Nay Phone Latt and Khin Mya Zin as they discuss the state of literature in Myanmar with Karen Connelly at the International Festival of Authors.
This event is part of Found in Translation, a yearly festival focus on the art of literary translation with the goal of increasing Canadian awareness of international talent.
Dr. Ma Thida, a surgeon, human rights activist and writer, is President of the newly formed PEN Myanmar Centre. In October 1993, she was sentenced to 20 years in prison for her writings in support of Aung San Suu Kyi. In 1999, she was released following political pressure from organizations including International PEN. In 1996 she received the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award.
Nay Phone Latt, a blogger and activist, is Secretary of the PEN Myanmar Centre. In 2007, his blog reported on the Buddhist-monk-led protests, which local media were forbidden to cover. He was sentenced to 20 years in prison for his reporting but released in 2012 as part of a mass political pardon. In 2010 he received the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award.
Khin Mya Zin is the pen name of short story writer writer Htay Htay Myint. In 2012, her short story collection Clouds in the Sky and Other Stories won the Myanmar National Literary Award.
Karen Connelly is the author of 10 books of bestselling non-fiction, fiction and poetry. She has won the Pat Lowther Memorial Award for her poetry, the Governor General’s Award for her non-fiction and Britain’s Orange Broadband Prize for New Fiction for her first novel, The Lizard Cage. Connelly presents her latest collection of poetry, Come Cold River, a searing portrayal of her troubled family. Refracted through different Canadian cities and foreign landscapes, the book expands into an authentic homage to those who are made invisible and silenced.