Blue Met: A feast of languages and literature

Over 250 writers, literary translators, cartoonists, storytellers, and publishers from around the world will gather in Montreal for five days of literary events held in English, French, Spanish and other languages.

The Blue Metropolis International Literary Grand Prix 2009 will be awarded to the distinguished English novelist, short story writer and literary critic A.S. Byatt. She will receive the prize during the Opening Night of the Festival on Wednesday, April 22 at 6 p.m., an event co-hosted by Eleanor Wachtel (CBC Radio One), Jean Fugère (Radio-Canada) and Linda Leith (Founder & Artistic Director of Blue Metropolis). The $10,000 award recognizes a lifetime of literary achievement by a writer of international reputation.



The evening will also see the international launch of Byatt’s new novel The Children’s Book, as well as the launch of L’ombre du soleil, the French translation of her first published title, The Shadow of the Sun. During the Festival, Byatt will also participate in two onstage interviews: one in French on Friday, April 24th (5:30 p.m.) with Danielle Laurin, and one in English on Saturday, April 25th (2 p.m.) with Eleanor Wachtel.

Words do matter, today more than ever. Times of turmoil are times of danger, as we lose much we have valued. They are times of opportunity, as well, as we rethink what we have taken for granted, discriminate between what matters more and what matters less, and create anew. The 11th Blue Met brings you words worth writing, works worth reading, writers worth quoting, texts worth teaching – all kinds of words that can make the world a better place. And what are those words? Inclusion and diversity, for a start. Fighting words. Respect, commitment, quality, innovation. And fun!

Fifteen countries will be represented at the 11th Blue Met: Canada, Belgium, France, Morocco, Guatemala, Argentina, Nicaragua, Hungary, United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Italy, United States of America, Israel, Syria and Germany. We will also welcome Canadian writers who are originally from Iran, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, Haiti, Poland and Pakistan.



The list of international stars participating in onstage interviews, talks, panel discussions and readings at Blue Met will include:



Laure Adler (France), Tariq Ali (Pakistan), Donald Antrim (USA), Stéphane Audeguy (France), Johannes Auer (Germany), Giles Blunt (Canada), Pablo de Santis (Argentina), Tijs Goldschmidt (Netherlands), Marek Halter (France), Nikahang Kowsar (Iran), János Lackfi (Hungary), Margaret MacMillan (Canada), Daniel Mendelsohn (USA), Khireddine Mourad (Morocco), Jean-Luc Outers (Belgium), Linda Polman (Netherlands), Sergio Ramirez (Nicaragua), Reza (Iran), Nino Ricci (Canada), Erika Ritter (Canada), Meir Shalev (Israel), Domenico Starnone (Italy), Zakaria Tamer (Syria), Krisztina Tóth (Hungary), François Vallejo (France), M.G. Vassanji (Canada), A.B. Yehoshua (Israel).

Writers in Peril is a series of events on freedom of expression inaugurated in 2008 in partnership with Reporters without Borders and Media@McGill. Last year, more than a dozen writers and journalists persecuted for their writing took part in onstage interviews and panel discussions. Blue Metropolis fans will recall that this past February, we kicked off the 2nd Writers in Peril with the event Azar Nafisi in Montreal. During the 11th Blue Met, the series will include events in French, English, Spanish, Arabic and Farsi. The series will feature photojournalist Reza, who in Afghanistan established Aina, a local NGO aimed at training journalists and establishing newspapers and other media outlets. Human rights activist Marek Halter has served as president of the European Foundation for Science, Art and Culture. Nikahang Kowsar is an exiled Iranian cartoonist, journalist and blogger living in Toronto. Zakaria Tamer is a Syrian-born short story writer and author of children’s stories. Margaret MacMillan, editor of Canada and NATO and the author of Nixon in China and of Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World, will speak about censorship in China. Other participants include war reporter Linda Polman as well as writer and former politician Sergio Ramirez.

For the third consecutive year, Blue Metropolis Foundation will award its Blue Metropolis Al Majidi Ibn Dhaher Arab Literary Prize to an Arab author in recognition of a lifetime of work. Sponsored by the Abu Dhabi Authority for Culture and Heritage, this year’s $5,000 prize will be given to the Syrian-born Zakaria Tamer. Tamer is recognized as one of the most widely read short-story writers, as well as a pre-eminent author of children’s stories in Arabic. He will receive his award at a special ceremony and will participate in an onstage interview Thursday, April 23rd. Hosted by Issa J. Boullata, this event will take place in Arabic.

As always, the Festival includes some of the most renowned Quebec writers who work in English. The 11th Blue Met includes Rana Bose, Ami Sands Brodoff, Bill Brownstein, Ann Charney, Jon Paul Fiorentino, Phil Jenkins, Colin McAdam, Elaine Kalman Naves, Louise Penny, Monique Polak, Claire Holden Rothman, Norm Sibum, Carolyn Marie Souaid, and Carmine Starnino along with stunning newcomers Jonathan Goldstein, Saleema Nawaz, Eric Siblin, Miguel Syjuco and Alice Zorn.

Blue Metropolis is offering a taste of Italy with its Metropolis Azzurro series. This year, Italian author and Strega Prize recipient Domenico Starnone will participate in an onstage interview in Italian on Sunday, April 26th. Readings and a panel discussion organized by the Association of Italian Canadian Writers will feature Elettra Bedon, Licia Canton, Antonio D’Alfonso, Marcello Di Cintio and Filippo Salvatore. And discover the images and words that matter Italian-style during the 4th annual Accenti Magazine Awards on Friday, April 24th.

Blue Met has a long tradition of welcoming some of the greatest contemporary Latin American writers. This year we are proud to introduce you to prominent writers Sergio Ramirez and Pablo de Santis at the 11th Blue Met. Sergio Ramírez is a leading Nicaraguan writer and intellectual who has published more than two dozen novels, short-story collections and non-fiction works. He also served as vice-president of Nicaragua from 1985 to 1990. Buenos Aires-born Pablo de Santis worked as a journalist and comic-strip creator before becoming editor-in-chief of one of Argentina’s leading comic magazines. He won the inaugural Premio Planeta-Casa de América de Narrativa for best Latin American novel for The Paris Enigma. Blue Met is also thrilled to welcome a contingent of Latin American journalists, including Argentinians Carolina Arenes, Flavia Costa, Juana Libedinsky, and Guatemalan novelist and journalist Carol Zardetto.

The 11th Festival will feature a Hungarian contingent consisting of two writers and a publisher, who will participate in events in French, English and Hungarian. Award-winning writer Krisztina Tóth is one of Hungary’s most highly acclaimed poets. Born in Budapest, János Lackfi is a writer and a professor at Pázmány Péter Catholic University and the editor of the journal Nagyvilág. Hungarian publisher Miklós Nagy will participate in the International Publishers’ Forum.

Blue Met is proud of its close ties to the vibrant Jewish literary culture of Montreal. At the 11th Blue Met, international Israeli literary stars A.B. Yehoshua and Meir Shalev will be appearing in six events, in French and in English. A.B. Yehoshua is professor of literature at Haifa University and the author of novels, short stories, plays and essays which have been published in 28 languages. Meir Shalev’s works – which include novels, children’s books and essay collections – have been translated into over 20 languages. Shalev won Israel’s 2006 Brenner Prize for his novel A Pigeon and a Boy.

In 2008, Blue Metropolis inaugurated a South Asian programming strand. With the eyes of the world focussed on South Asia, the 11th Festival will feature Indian and Pakistani writers in English-language events, such as readings, panel discussions and onstage interviews. For the first time, Blue Metropolis will feature an event in Urdu with the Pakistani-British essayist and novelist Tariq Ali. Other South Asian writers at this year’s Festival include novelist and editor M.G. Vassanji; Indian-born multilingual playwright, poet and author Rana Bose; and Saleema Nawaz, author of the short story collection Mother Superior.

To mark the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth and the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species, Blue Metropolis presents an event with internationally renowned Dutch writer and evolutionary biologist Tijs Goldschmidt. Goldschmidt is the author of the celebrated Darwin’s Dreampond: Drama on Lake Victoria, in which he intertwines scientific and personal experiences.



Other science writers at Blue Met 2009 are Taras Grescoe, author of Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood; Adam Leith Gollner, who recently won the McAuslan First Book Prize for The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Obsession, Commerce and Adventure; and playwright and author Erika Ritter, whose latest book The Dog by the Cradle, The Serpent Beneath examines some of the paradoxes of human-animal relationships.



An interactive digital poetry project with German Web artist Johannes Auer will also be presented. Using words taken from Kafka’s The Castle, a Dada-accented text will be generated and read by Kaie Kellough. This interactive work allows us to reflect on the evolution of digital literature since the first computer-generated literary text was created in 1959 by Theo Lutz.

On Sunday, April 26, join us for a special 11th Festival closing event celebrating Montrealers whose lives have been profiled as part of Penguin’s Extraordinary Canadians Series. This remarkable series of short biographies is marked by an inspired matching of biographer and subject. Former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson on Norman Bethune; 2003 Governor General’s Award winner Margaret MacMillan on Stephen Leacock; novelist and editor M.G. Vassanji on Mordecai Richler; and Governor General’s Award-winning novelist Nino Ricci on Pierre Elliott Trudeau. With Extraordinary Canadians Series Editor John Ralston Saul and CBC Blue host Paul Kennedy.

The Festival is an opportunity not only to meet authors, but also to develop one’s own writing talent. On the menu this year: “Writing Ourselves,” a fiction writing workshop with Donald Antrim. This workshop requires prior registration. For more details, please consult our website at www.bluemetropolis.org.

Young people are the writers and readers of tomorrow. Adapted to the needs of students and their teachers, Blue Metropolis Educational Programmes consist of creative writing workshops, readings and seminars, meetings and exchanges with renowned writers and artists. The Educational Programmes are intended for French and English students from elementary to Cégep level.



The Student Literary Programme consists of small groups of students taking part in creative writing workshops with an author, from April 22 to 24 on the Festival site and at participating Montreal libraries. The writers who will be working with the students this year include poet and novelist Jon Paul Fiorentino; author Adam Leith Gollner; author and musician Phil Jenkins; essayist Elaine Kalman Naves, YA writer Monique Polak and short story writer Saleema Nawaz; poet Carmine Starnino; spoken word artist Kaie Kellough; Aya Karpinska and her electronic literature; and writers Mathieu Lippé and Michel Vézina.



On Thursday, April 23 at 2:00 p.m., Blue Metropolis will launch Quebec Roots: The Place Where I Live 2009. This anthology features texts and photographs created by anglophone students across Quebec. For more than five months, the students worked closely with authors and photographers, who helped them depict their communities through words and images. Come celebrate the launch of the book and get your copy at the Festival bookstore!



Voices from Quebec, a new programme created in collaboration with the Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network, puts students, from the Lower North Shore to Nunavik, together with an author, a radio producer and a sound engineer to create oral history radio documentaries about their communities. This year, the sound documentaries will not only be available in podcast on our Web site at www.bluemetropolis.org, but festivalgoers will also get the chance to listen to the documentaries at sound stations positioned on the Festival site.

Since its founding in 1998, the Blue Metropolis Festival has played an important role in showcasing the work of writers, literary translators, journalists, illustrators, editors and publishers on the Montreal literary scene, as well as nationally and internationally.



Discover or rediscover the annual Translation Slam – that extraordinary event featuring the non-violent sport of literary translation that came into being at the very first Blue Met and that is now being featured in New York City as a result of our partnership with PEN World Voices. On Saturday, April 25 at 1 p.m., Émile Martel will host the 11th annual Translation Slam, featuring poets Oana Avasilichioaei and Marc André Brouillette and translators Hugh Hazelton, Patricia Claxton, Nicole Perron-Martel and Louise Desjardins. The Literary Translators’ Association of Canada is hosting its own event celebrating the work of its members, and the annual Blue Metropolis International Translation Workshop is the place to get the inside track on literary translation. This year, the literary director of the Americas Society, Daniel Shapiro, and Esther Allen, head of Columbia’s Translation Centre, will be our international guests along with Ludmila Proujanskaia and Quebec novelist and translator Hélène Rioux.



The Blue Metropolis International Publishers’ Forum will be held on Friday, April 24 from 2 to 5 p.m. This invitation-only event brings foreign and English-Canadian publishers and other book-industry professionals to Montreal for formal and informal meetings with their Quebec counterparts.

Festival authors’ books are on sale throughout the Festival at the Blue Metropolis Bookstore: room Les Courants, mezzanine level. Festival authors will normally be signing copies of their books in the Blue Metropolis Bookstore immediately after each of their events. Selected signings will take place at the exit of an event. A complete list of signings will be posted in the bookstore each day of the Festival.



Opening Hours:

Wednesday, April 22: 3 to 10 p.m.

Thursday, April 23: 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Friday, April 24: 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Saturday, April 25: 11:00 a.m. to 10 p.m.

Sunday, April 26: 11:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.

The Festival programme will be available as of March 31st at Olivieri bookstore (5219 Côte-des-Neiges), Montreal public libraries and the Delta Centre-Ville Hotel, (777 University Street). The programme will also be available online as of March 31st at www.bluemetropolis.org.



Unless otherwise indicated, all events take place at the Delta Centre-Ville Hotel, 777 University Street (Métro Square-Victoria). INFO FESTIVAL: (514) 937-BLEU

The following book launches will take place at the Festival in Les Courants.



Wednesday, April 22 at 6 p.m.

Opening Night

The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt (Random House Canada /Knopf Canada)

L’ombre du soleil d’ A.S. Byatt (Flammarion)



Thursday, April 23 at 7 p.m.

Stripmalling, a novel by Jon Paul Fiorentino (ECW Press)

Friday, April 24 at 5 p.m.

Collective launch, Mémoire d’encrier



Saturday, April 25 17 h

Fences in Breathing, translation of La Capture du sombre de Nicole Brossard (Coach House Books)



Sunday, April 26 14 h

Collective launch by Nick McArthur, Eva Moran, Angela Szczepaniak and Gillian Sze (DC Books)

Tickets go on sale March 31st and are available:

By telephone at (514) 790-1245 or 1 800 361-4595;

By Internet* at www.bluemetropolis.org or directly at www.admission.com;

At all Admission outlets;

At the Festival Ticket Office (Delta Centre-Ville Hotel), open as of noon on April 22 and for the duration of the Festival.

*Admission Network, service fees apply.

Located in Montreal, Blue Metropolis Foundation is a non-profit organization established in June 1997. Its mandate is to bring people of different cultures together to share the pleasures of reading and writing. For more information on Blue Metropolis Foundation, please visit www.bluemetropolis.org.