Stories of Fortitude & Renewal

Souvankham Thammavongsa, Jamal Saeed & Lawrence Scanlan
Frances Itani, host

Jamal Saeed, Souvankham Thammavongsa and Lawrence Scanlan, with host Frances Itani, will explore the struggle to find meaning in difficult times, to belong in a foreign place, to face grave injustices. Their conversation will delve into the human spirit’s capacity to overcome adversity, and start anew with hope and optimism for the future.

How to Pronounce Knife, by Souvankham Thammavongsa, winner of the Giller Prize, is by turns tender and uncompromising. Her revelatory work of fiction established her as an essential new voice in Canadian and world literature. Her stunning collection of stories portray the immigrant experience in achingly beautiful prose, honouring Laotian Canadian immigrant families, struggling to find their bearings far from home, even as they do the necessary “grunt work of the world.”

She says, “Laughter is very important to me. The cornerstone of all these stories is laughter. To me, laughter isn’t frivolous. It is a way of surviving. Laughter when things are horribly unbearable. Laughter when things are uncomfortable. Laughter when there is nothing else to feel. Also when there is joy, too. You have to laugh because that’s how you take back your power. Deriving humor from pain, and allowing the two to coexist within a single moment, has been integral to my experience of being an immigrant.”

Jamal Saeed’s memoir, My Road from Damascus, tells his story as a 12-year prisoner of conscience in Syria before his harrowing escape to Canada in 2016. A lyrical, rich narrative of loss and memory, it was nominated for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Prize for Non-fiction. He chronicles the country’s dramatic changes and descent from a country of potential to a pawn of cynical and corrupt powers. He writes with brutal clarity of his experiences inside Syrian prisons — and yet, there is a poetic quality to the telling, and he looks, too, at beauty, hope and love.

Lawrence Scanlan, journalist, radio producer, winner of three National Magazine Awards, eclectic and prolific writer, has written about horses, life in the country, and the cabin as sanctuary. In A Year of Living Generously – Dispatches from the Frontlines of Philanthropy, Scanlan tests the ideas and theories on global aid and charity and makes a compelling case for greater commitment and real connection. A book about compassion that chronicles Scanlan’s twelve months of volunteering with twelve different charities, it was selected by the Globe and Mail as a Best 100 Book. Scanlan’s take home advice, “Weave generosity into your daily life and be politically engaged too.” He writes, “Show empathy as a volunteer, show passion as an activist.”

Of his friendship with Jamal Saeed, he writes, “So. A local Kingston writer sees a photograph (it went viral in 2015) of a drowned Syrian boy on a Mediterranean beach, is moved to do something, anything, and forms a committee aimed at getting a Syrian writer to Canada. Said Syrian writer is Jamal Saeed, who does (with his family) come to Canada, and begins a book to describe his ordeal in Syrian prisons.

I was on that committee, I was among those to greet him, his wife and two boys at Pearson Airport, and I edited his book — chapter by chapter — and along the way became his friend.”

Souvankhmam Thammavongsa

SOUVANKHAM THAMMAVONGSA is the author of four poetry books, and the short story collection HOW TO PRONOUNCE KNIFE, winner of the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize and 2021 Trillium Book Award, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and PEN America Open Book Award, out now with Little, Brown (U.S.), Bloomsbury (U.K.), and McClelland & Stewart (Canada). Her stories have won an O. Henry Award and appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, Granta, and NOON. She has also written book reviews for The New York Times, and edited the anthologies Best Canadian Poetry (2021) and The Griffin Poetry Prize (2021). Currently, she is working on her first novel. She was born in the Lao refugee camp in Nong Khai, and was raised, and educated at public schools, in Toronto.

Lawrence Scanlan

Lawrence Scanlan was literary producer for Peter Gzowski’s Morningside on CBC Radio, literary editor of The Kingston Whig-Standard, and managing editor of Harrowsmith magazine.

He has won multiple awards for his writing, including four National Magazine Awards. He is the author of more than two dozen books and served as ghost-writer for Margaret Trudeau, Olivia Chow, Robert Bateman, and Ian Millar. His books about horses (Wild About Horses, The Horse God Built) were bestsellers, as was his book about philanthropy (A Year of Living Generously: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Philanthropy). The Man Who Listens to Horses, co-authored with Monty Roberts, sold more than one million copies and spent a year on The New York Times best-seller list. He now lives in the countryside near Picton, Ontario.

Jamal Saeed

Jamal Saeed is a Syrian-Canadian writer, who arrived as a refugee in Canada in 2016. In his native Syria, his writing challenged social and political norms. For this, and his opposition to the regimes of the al-Assads (father and son), he was imprisoned and tortured for twelve years, held without formal charge or judicial process. My Road from Damascus ~ A Memoir was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Non-fiction, and offers a tapestry of Saeed’s whole life—he chronicles the country’s dramatic changes and looks squarely at the brutality of prison, but also at beauty and poetry, hope and love. His YA novel, Yara’s Spring, written with Sharon E. McKay, explores a young girl’s coming of age in the midst of the Arab Spring. He is currently working on two children’s picture books, one to be published in 2025 and a collection of short stories. Saeed continues to raise awareness about Syria’s ongoing civil war and humanitarian crisis through his work as an activist, editor, visual artist and author. He lives in Kingston.

Frances Itani

Frances Itani, Member of the Order of Canada and recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, has written 18 books (novels, short stories, poetry, children’s books). Her work has been translated and published in 18 countries. She has won national and international awards, including a Commonwealth Prize for best book of fiction for Deafening; Jubilee Award for best Canadian Story Collection, Poached Egg on Toast; CBC Literary Award (3 times), Ottawa Book Awards, Grant MacEwan Book of the Year Award, 2021 Matt Cohen Award for a Distinguished Body of Work over a Lifetime of Writing, and 2019 Library and Archives Canada Scholars’ Award. Her work has also been shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Award; William Saroyan Award; the Giller Prize for her novel Tell. Her most recent novel is The Company We Keep. She has been a teacher and mentor for many years, and often takes part in panels and discussion groups. Her poems, stories and a one-hour drama have been broadcast over CBC radio. Her novels are popular with book clubs, and her novel Requiem was chosen by the Washington Post in 2012 as one of the top fiction titles in the U.S. She grew up in Quebec, has travelled widely and has lived in many countries and in seven provinces of Canada. She is working on two novels, one of which she hopes to finish this year. She lives in Ottawa. Her website: Francesitani.com

Stories of Fortitude & Renewal

Souvankham Thammavongsa, Jamal Saeed & Lawrence Scanlan
Frances Itani, host

Jamal Saeed, Souvankham Thammavongsa and Lawrence Scanlan, with host Frances Itani, will explore the struggle to find meaning in difficult times, to belong in a foreign place, to face grave injustices. Their conversation will delve into the human spirit’s capacity to overcome adversity, and start anew with hope and optimism for the future.

How to Pronounce Knife, by Souvankham Thammavongsa, winner of the Giller Prize, is by turns tender and uncompromising. Her revelatory work of fiction established her as an essential new voice in Canadian and world literature. Her stunning collection of stories portray the immigrant experience in achingly beautiful prose, honouring Laotian Canadian immigrant families, struggling to find their bearings far from home, even as they do the necessary “grunt work of the world.”

She says, “Laughter is very important to me. The cornerstone of all these stories is laughter. To me, laughter isn’t frivolous. It is a way of surviving. Laughter when things are horribly unbearable. Laughter when things are uncomfortable. Laughter when there is nothing else to feel. Also when there is joy, too. You have to laugh because that’s how you take back your power. Deriving humor from pain, and allowing the two to coexist within a single moment, has been integral to my experience of being an immigrant.”

Jamal Saeed’s memoir, My Road from Damascus, tells his story as a 12-year prisoner of conscience in Syria before his harrowing escape to Canada in 2016. A lyrical, rich narrative of loss and memory, it was nominated for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Prize for Non-fiction. He chronicles the country’s dramatic changes and descent from a country of potential to a pawn of cynical and corrupt powers. He writes with brutal clarity of his experiences inside Syrian prisons — and yet, there is a poetic quality to the telling, and he looks, too, at beauty, hope and love.

Lawrence Scanlan, journalist, radio producer, winner of three National Magazine Awards, eclectic and prolific writer, has written about horses, life in the country, and the cabin as sanctuary. In A Year of Living Generously – Dispatches from the Frontlines of Philanthropy, Scanlan tests the ideas and theories on global aid and charity and makes a compelling case for greater commitment and real connection. A book about compassion that chronicles Scanlan’s twelve months of volunteering with twelve different charities, it was selected by the Globe and Mail as a Best 100 Book. Scanlan’s take home advice, “Weave generosity into your daily life and be politically engaged too.” He writes, “Show empathy as a volunteer, show passion as an activist.”

Of his friendship with Jamal Saeed, he writes, “So. A local Kingston writer sees a photograph (it went viral in 2015) of a drowned Syrian boy on a Mediterranean beach, is moved to do something, anything, and forms a committee aimed at getting a Syrian writer to Canada. Said Syrian writer is Jamal Saeed, who does (with his family) come to Canada, and begins a book to describe his ordeal in Syrian prisons.

I was on that committee, I was among those to greet him, his wife and two boys at Pearson Airport, and I edited his book — chapter by chapter — and along the way became his friend.”

Souvankhmam Thammavongsa

SOUVANKHAM THAMMAVONGSA is the author of four poetry books, and the short story collection HOW TO PRONOUNCE KNIFE, winner of the 2020 Scotiabank Giller Prize and 2021 Trillium Book Award, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and PEN America Open Book Award, out now with Little, Brown (U.S.), Bloomsbury (U.K.), and McClelland & Stewart (Canada). Her stories have won an O. Henry Award and appeared in The New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, The Paris Review, The Atlantic, Granta, and NOON. She has also written book reviews for The New York Times, and edited the anthologies Best Canadian Poetry (2021) and The Griffin Poetry Prize (2021). Currently, she is working on her first novel. She was born in the Lao refugee camp in Nong Khai, and was raised, and educated at public schools, in Toronto.

Lawrence Scanlan

Lawrence Scanlan was literary producer for Peter Gzowski’s Morningside on CBC Radio, literary editor of The Kingston Whig-Standard, and managing editor of Harrowsmith magazine.

He has won multiple awards for his writing, including four National Magazine Awards. He is the author of more than two dozen books and served as ghost-writer for Margaret Trudeau, Olivia Chow, Robert Bateman, and Ian Millar. His books about horses (Wild About Horses, The Horse God Built) were bestsellers, as was his book about philanthropy (A Year of Living Generously: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Philanthropy). The Man Who Listens to Horses, co-authored with Monty Roberts, sold more than one million copies and spent a year on The New York Times best-seller list. He now lives in the countryside near Picton, Ontario.

Jamal Saeed

Jamal Saeed is a Syrian-Canadian writer, who arrived as a refugee in Canada in 2016. In his native Syria, his writing challenged social and political norms. For this, and his opposition to the regimes of the al-Assads (father and son), he was imprisoned and tortured for twelve years, held without formal charge or judicial process. My Road from Damascus ~ A Memoir was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Non-fiction, and offers a tapestry of Saeed’s whole life—he chronicles the country’s dramatic changes and looks squarely at the brutality of prison, but also at beauty and poetry, hope and love. His YA novel, Yara’s Spring, written with Sharon E. McKay, explores a young girl’s coming of age in the midst of the Arab Spring. He is currently working on two children’s picture books, one to be published in 2025 and a collection of short stories. Saeed continues to raise awareness about Syria’s ongoing civil war and humanitarian crisis through his work as an activist, editor, visual artist and author. He lives in Kingston.

Frances Itani

Frances Itani, Member of the Order of Canada and recipient of the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, has written 18 books (novels, short stories, poetry, children’s books). Her work has been translated and published in 18 countries. She has won national and international awards, including a Commonwealth Prize for best book of fiction for Deafening; Jubilee Award for best Canadian Story Collection, Poached Egg on Toast; CBC Literary Award (3 times), Ottawa Book Awards, Grant MacEwan Book of the Year Award, 2021 Matt Cohen Award for a Distinguished Body of Work over a Lifetime of Writing, and 2019 Library and Archives Canada Scholars’ Award. Her work has also been shortlisted for the IMPAC Dublin Award; William Saroyan Award; the Giller Prize for her novel Tell. Her most recent novel is The Company We Keep. She has been a teacher and mentor for many years, and often takes part in panels and discussion groups. Her poems, stories and a one-hour drama have been broadcast over CBC radio. Her novels are popular with book clubs, and her novel Requiem was chosen by the Washington Post in 2012 as one of the top fiction titles in the U.S. She grew up in Quebec, has travelled widely and has lived in many countries and in seven provinces of Canada. She is working on two novels, one of which she hopes to finish this year. She lives in Ottawa. Her website: Francesitani.com