Marlboro College Alumni Speaker Series presents: DENI ELLIS BÉCHARD '97 Reading and Discussion of A Song from Far Away.
BÉCHARD will be joining the Marlboro College Alumni Office via Zoom from Stanford, CA for a reading and discussion of his forthcoming novel, A Song from Far Away which takes on war, artistic expression, and family. Pre-register for this event here: https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_VYDudh_zQgiG5QDQRn3ZNA
He says, "I wrote the first drafts of A Song from Faraway 20 years ago to understand how family identity could be transformed not only by borders and wars but also by various types of artistic expression. Over the course of many rewrites, the novel's family took shape, with the lives of its members spanning a hundred and fifty years. Their paths often barely crossed and yet deeply affected each other, so that each new storyline joined the previous to create a larger narrative about the ways that artistic creations can transmit memory and history or catalyze change." Read more about the book here: https://milkweed.org/book/a-song-from-faraway
DENI ELLIS BÉCHARD is the author of eight books of fiction and nonfiction, including Vandal Love (Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book and a selection for Oprah's summer reading list); Into the Sun, a novel about the civilian surge in Afghanistan (Midwest Book Award for literary fiction and chosen by CBC/Radio Canada as one of the most important books of 2017 to be read by Canada's political leadership); Of Bonobos and Men (Nautilus Book Award for investigative journalism and Grand Prize winner); Cures for Hunger, a memoir about his father who was a bank robber (an IndieNext pick and one of the best memoirs of 2012 by Amazon.ca); Kuei, my Friend: a Conversation on Racism and Reconciliation, an epistolary book of nonfiction coauthored with First Nations poet Natasha Kanapé-Fontaine; White, a novel exploring the legacy of colonialism and the impact of neocolonialism in the Congo and in Canada; and My Favorite Crime: Essays and Journalism from around the World. He has been a finalist for a Canadian National Magazine Award and has been featured in Best Canadian Essays 2017, and his photojournalism has been exhibited in the Canadian Museum of Human Rights. His articles, fiction, and photos have been published in dozens of newspapers and magazines, including the Los Angeles Times, Salon, Reuters, the Paris Review, The Guardian, La Repubblica, The Walrus, Pacific Standard, Le Devoir, Vanity Fair Italia, the Herald Scotland, the Huffington Post, the Harvard Review, the National Post, and Foreign Policy. He has reported from India, Cuba, Rwanda, Colombia, Iraq, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Afghanistan. His novel, A Song from Faraway, will be published in May 2020.
This event is hosted by the Marlboro College Alumni Office, Marlboro Professor of Writing and Literature Bronwen Tate, and Professor of Politics Ian McManus. For more information please contact alumni director Maia Segura at msegura@marlboro.edu.
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