Many big-name authors will be speaking at public events in Toronto this week. Kicking things off on Tuesday (October 28) is the sold-out PEN Canada Graeme Gibson Talk 2025: Notes on the New America. It will feature MSNBC host Rachel Maddow in conversation with prolific author Rebecca Solnit. CBC IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed will be the moderator.
Maddow’s newest book is Prequel: An American Fight Against Fascism. Solnit latest is No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain. Gibson’s widow, two-time Man Booker Prize winner Margaret Atwood, will deliver a personal introduction at Koerner Hall in the Telus Centre for Performance & Learning (273 Bloor Street West).
Atwood is one of only four authors to win the Booker twice. However, next month there could be a fifth author in this exclusive club. That’s because Kiran Desai is on the shortlist for her new novel, The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny. It’s about two Indian immigrants to the United States who meet on a train in India.
Desai will speak on the opening night of the Toronto International Festival of Authors at 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday (October 29). Tickets are still available for her conversation with moderator Randy Boyagoda about her new novel. It will take place at Isabel Bader Theatre (93 Charles Street West).
Desai previously won the Booker in 2006 for The Inheritance of Loss.
Giller Prize–winning authors will be on stage
Another high-profile author at the festival is Madeleine Thien, was on the shortlist for the Booker in 2016 for Do Not Say We Have Nothing. Her newest critically acclaimed novel, The Book of Records, is about people from different centuries who take refuge at a staging post between migrations.
Thien, also a Governor-General’s Literary Award for Fiction honoree, will discuss her new book at 6 p.m. on Friday (October 31) at Alumni Hall (91 Charles Street West) at Victoria College. Rawi Hage will be the moderator. Tickets are still available.
Last year, Thien made news after she asked that her name and image to be removed from the Giller Prize website and promotional materials. A 2016 Giller Prize winner, she issued this request because of the prize being sponsored by Scotiabank. One of the bank’s subsidiaries was an investor in the Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems.
Speaking of Giller Prize winners, three more of them will speak at the festival: Ian Williams, Souvankham Thammavongsa, and Linden MacIntyre. Visit the Toronto International Festival of Authors website for a full list of authors at the event.
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