MAREK KUSIBA AT THE CSC

On November 30^th, Marek Kusiba, a Polish and Canadian poet and journalist, visited the Canadian Studies Centre at the Institute of English Cultures and Literatures. During the open meeting with students entitled “Otherness in the Canadian Context”, Mr Kusiba talked about the life of a poet thousands of kilometres away from home, his affiliation to the motherland and the country of residence, as well as his friendship with Ryszard Kapusciński. 

Addressing the issue of emigration, Mr Kusiba shared with students his own experience, as well as his thoughts concerning Polish writers who created their works outside their  homeland – Adam Mickiewicz, Jan Lechoń, and Wacław Iwaniuk among others. The students attending the meeting were highly interested in how Mr Kusiba negotiated his bonds with Poland and Canada. Answering this question, Mr Kusiba explained that living in Canada and speaking English has enriched his mother tongue and his way of writing. Moreover, as he stated, the number of travels he had made, people he had met, and the influence of Ryszard Kapuściński, showed him that a writer should be open for and sensitive to other people and various cultures. Mr Kusiba was and is experiencing the “exile” from his motherland, however, he does not treat it like a curse – for him, travel is a blessing, and distance is a friend. The concluding statement of the meeting can be found in words of Stefan Themerson, quoted by Mr Kusiba: “every writer, ever, everywhere is in exile”.

The meeting was organised by Canadian Studies Centre and Canadian Studies Student Circle.

A New Story from Alice Munro

A new story by Alice Munro will be published in the Winter 2012 issue of the Narrative Magazine annual print edition. Here’s an excerpt from their newsletter:

“Alice Munro graces the issue with a new short story, “To Reach Japan,” in which a young mother casts herself out of one life and into another, like a message in a bottle tossed in a sea to reach the far shore.”

The magazine is available for purchase in print or in PDF format: here.

In Other Worlds - Margaret Atwood and Science Fiction

October 11, 2011 marked the publication date of Margaret Atwood’s newest book, In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination, a collection of essays dealing with the author’s views upon the widely popular genre of science fiction. In her book, Atwood discusses the history and theory of the genre, explaining her own controversial opinion about the difference between “science fiction” proper and “speculative fiction”, as she calls her recent forays into SF, her novels Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood. What is more, she writes about the works of some prominent authors of the genre, such as George Orwell, Aldous Huxley and Ursula K. Le Guin among others. The essays are complemented by several original short stories.

Some interesting reviews:

Quill and Quire

Telegraph
Miami Herald

 

Podcast of an interview with Margaret Atwood herself:

BBC

Trivia:

 

In cooperation with Canopy, an environmental group based in Vancouver, Atwood launched an autographed limited version of In Other Worlds, printed on paper made entirely of straw, as part of a campaign against needless cutting down of trees and for new, alternative ways of creating paper. (Read more about it here: the Globe and Mail )