Sunday, October 01, 2006

An Iranian journalist mysteriously disappeared en route to the Ottawa International Writers Festival in 2003. That same year at the festival, a self-described "Muslim refusenik" from Toronto felt the need of a burly bodyguard. In earlier years, the attendance of authors rumoured to be anti-Semitic sparked protests. The list goes on and on.

 

The Ottawa International Writers Festival has never been a dull affair. The festival has, in its 10 years, made its share of headlines while attempting to showcase some of the most engaging and provocative figures in the literary world.

 

It has made news and been caught up in the news, as in 2001, when the festival began only a few days after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. The festival schedule was a major casualty; several authors either refused or were simply unable to travel to Ottawa. Those who did come tailored their presentations to the new post-9/11 world.

 

Thus, through a fluke of timing, the festival became one of the first forums in Canada for authors, intellectuals and average citizens to mourn the dead, engage in a group hug and analyse the New Reality. The National Arts Centre, where the festival was held in its early years, seemed mere steps from New York's Ground Zero.

 

The festival has always been about more than books. A regular feature of the annual festival, which begins today and continues until Saturday at Library and Archives Canada, is The Big Idea, in which pressing domestic and global concerns are discussed on stage by authors, alone or in groups. Usually, there are opportunities for audience participation. Conversations are rarely heated. But often stimulating.

 

The Big Idea is, above all, a celebration of freedom of speech, a very public exchange of ideas among intellectuals with distinct points of view on politics, religion, the environment and literature. But sometimes, even at the festival, Big Ideas are subject to censorship, which perhaps explains why Ali Dehbashi, an Iranian journalist unpopular with his own government, mysteriously disappeared just before a scheduled appearance in 2003. The Iranian government claimed the Canadian embassy in Tehran was tardy in giving Dehbashi a visa. Perhaps. But Dehbashi suddenly stopped answering e-mails and phone calls. Canadian diplomats, presumably, were not the cause of that. They were busy at that time protesting the mysterious death of Iranian-Canadian photo-journalist Zahra Kazemi.

 

Dehbashi's disappearance was the subject of considerable talk in the corridors -- not on the stage -- that year. Friendly, gossiping diplomats from the Iranian embassy circulated among the audience, keeping the talk alive. Global politics was being played out, somewhat surreptitiously, in the hallways of Library and Archives Canada.

 

Global politics also intervened when five writers from China attended the festival in 2002. These authors could have made unique contributions to discussions on literary censorship -- if they had been allowed such a luxury by their home government. In hallways near the main stage, Canadian-based Falun Gong adherents freely discussed what they considered to be oppression in China against their spiritual movement. But public discussion of Falun Gong was discouraged. At one point, festival director Neil Wilson opened a question and answer session with the Chinese writers by saying questions on Falun Gong would not be permitted.

 

"This is a delegation of writers; it is not a political delegation," Wilson said.

 

The Chinese government, which paid for the five writers to visit Ottawa, did not make public statements about the controversy. It was, however, the first and last time they sent writers to the festival to discuss any Big Ideas.

 

The Big Ideas of Irshad Manji as expressed in her 2003 book, The Trouble With Islam, made her fear for her life when she and her bodyguard came to the festival that same year. There had, supposedly, been death threats made against Manji because her book criticized the way Islam is practised in such conservative countries as Saudi Arabia. There are nothing like death threats against an author to help sales. The Trouble With Islam became an international bestseller following its well-guarded Ottawa launch.

 

The Big Ideas of Egyptian journalist Mohammed Salmawy in 2002, and American author John Sack in 2001, provoked protests. Jewish groups complained the authors were too cosy with Holocaust deniers. Some authors boycotted the festival to distance themselves from Salmawy and Sack. Audiences, however, were generally respectful. Festival regulars tend to give the appearance they are people with open minds. They want to decide for themselves.

Salmawy's writings include statements that the number of Jewish deaths in the Holocaust were exaggerated. Sack's perceived sins were to have written fondly of the formerly Toronto-based Holocaust denier Ernst Zundel and of having written a non-fiction book in 1993, An Eye for an Eye, about vengeful Jews killing and torturing German prisoners in Poland after the Second World War.

 

Festival controversies are often unpredictable. Who, for example, would have thought the 2002 festival would be most remembered by regulars, not for a controversial Egyptian, but for a food fight between the festival participants and a group of genealogists accidentally booked into the same space at the same time. The writers raided the genealogists' cheese trays. The genealogists stole the writers' Timbits. Insults were flying.

 

Food and drink are a big part of the festival. A make-shift bar-restaurant outside the main auditorium at Library and Archives is often the setting for some of the most intense discussions at the festival. That's where strangers meet over a beer to debate what has just transpired nearby on stage. That's where groupies buttonhole their favourite authors, demand an autograph and a few personalized words of wisdom.

 

Hidden away, in the festival green room, authors mingle with one another and reconnect with old friends. Ottawa author Frances Itani was delighted to spot her old pal, South African writer Damon Galgut, at one festival. The two went for a walk. Galgut suddenly fell seriously ill. Luckily, Itani was with him. Her previous career was in nursing. She tended to him while waiting for an ambulance.

 

Each event at the festival tends to draw a different crowd. The fans of mystery novels are usually exiting the building as crowds of political junkies arrive for the next speaker. Those who love slam poetry contests tend to party harder than the crowds attending the launch of the latest Saskatchewan history book. Ottawa's literati are far from homogenous. Everything from Cuban poets to Swedish novelists can draw hefty crowds.

 

The festival began 10 years ago with a truly international flavour and a strong contingent of foreign writers -- Irish the first year; American, British, Indian and South African in subsequent festivals. Over the years, the festival has become increasingly domestic and increasingly a magnet for Canada's top novelists, poets and Big Thinkers to launch new books and discuss their Big Ideas. This year's stars include former governor general Adrienne Clarkson, novelist Wayne Johnston, political backroom operative Eddie Goldenberg, poet Ronnie Brown and gender-bender Sky Gilbert. These are all folks never at a loss for words on paper or spoken from a stage; the people who educate us, entertain us and, often, rile us.

Paul Gessell's festival picks

 

Today's festival activities begin this afternoon with The Big Ideas of Andrew Cohen, a Carleton University professor, Citizen columnist and author of While Canada Slept, a book about Canada's influence (or lack thereof) in the international world of diplomacy. Cohen's presentation is called The Best of Friends: Canada-U.S. Relations in the 21st Century.

 

Later in the afternoon, Afua Cooper, author of The Hanging of Angelique, stars in a Big Idea segment entitled The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery. Canadians like to think of their country as a refuge for American slaves but this used to be a place, like the United States, where slavery was once alive and well. Cooper's book tells the story of one slave in Montreal, hanged in 1734 for arson. Her confession to the crime was extracted under torture.

 

The Biggest Ideas of today will, however, undoubtedly come from Adrienne Clarkson this evening at the Chateau Laurier, the site of the Ottawa launch of the former governor general's memoir Heart Matters.

 

Clarkson's book has already been making waves, not just because of her pronouncements on prime ministers past, but because of the entire Clarkson persona and style. She knows how to get Canada talking and now, she hopes, reading as well.

 

One of the most topical Big Ideas comes in the person of Canadian-American author Stephen O'Shea, author of Sea of Faith: Islam and Christianity in the Middle Ages (See Q&A with O'Shea on C4). Don't be put off by the title. This book is very relevant. Today's battles between Christian and Muslim religions began centuries ago. The recent outburst at the Pope by some Muslims are the latest manifestations of unresolved rivalries. The past, at times, is very present.

 

In addition to Big Ideas, the writers festival has become the prime venue for Ottawa's literary groupies to see their favourite novelists and, in bearpit sessions, ask them personal questions.

 

What kind of room do you write in? Do you base your characters on real people? How much money do you make?

 

(Author Linda Spalding, wife of the more famous author Michael Ondaatje, answered that last question one festival by saying: "I'm a kept woman.")

 

Wayne Johnston (The Custodian of Paradise), Anita Rau Badami (Can You Hear the Nightbird Call?), Dennis Bock (The Communist's Daughter) and other top novelists can expect to be confronted with such questions at this year's festival after discussing their new, much anticipated books.

 

Ottawa's literary elite are usually much in evidence at the festival. Wandering the hallways of Library and Archives Canada this year, expect to see the likes of Charlotte Gray (Reluctant Genius), Charles de Lint (Widdershins), Ronnie Brown (States of Matter), Mark Frutkin (Fabrizio's Return), Alan Cumyn (The Famished Lover) and Rick Mofina (Every Fear).

 

Randy Boyagoda is not from Ottawa but he has written one of the funniest books ever penned about Ottawa. Nominated for this year's Scotiabank Giller Prize, Boyagoda's spoof is called Governor of the Northern Province and it is a wicked satire on Canadian politics and Canadian political correctness. It's all about an air-head independent MP from a town suspiciously similar to Pembroke and her sidekick, an African refugee with a bloody past. Boyagoda appears tomorrow at 8:30 p.m.

 

Another must for political junkies is Thursday evening's appearance by Eddie Goldenberg, the long-time righthand man of Jean Chretien. Goldenberg is launching a behind-the-scenes memoir called The Way It Works. Goldenberg knows where all the bodies are buried in Ottawa. But will he tell?

 

Other events with considerable potential include Sky Gilbert's appearance Friday evening. The Toronto-based Gilbert is an author and drag queen about town. The festival promises: "A sinfully sexy and gender-bending evening of transgressive writing." Whatever that means.

True-blue literary groupies won't want to miss Noah Richler's Saturday noon presentation about his new book, A Literary Atlas of Canada. Richler toured the country for years interviewing most every author of note: Margaret Atwood, Sharon Butala, Wayne Johnston, Tomson Highway and dozens more. Richler was trying to divine the literary soul of Canada. He could have saved himself considerable work by spending a week at the Ottawa International Writers Festival.

 

Ottawa International Writers Festival at a Glance

 

TODAY

2 p.m.

- Exile Editions 30th Anniversary Celebration featuring: Priscila Uppal, Sean Virgo, Janice Kulyk Keefer, James Bacque and Barry Callaghan

- The BIG IDEA: The Best of Friends: Canada-U.S. Relations in the 21st Century with Andrew Cohen and Jim Creskey

4 p.m.

- The NEW Science: Super Pills:

The Prescription Drugs We Love to Take with Steven Manners

- The BIG IDEA: The Untold Story of Canadian Slavery with Afua Cooper

6 p.m.

- Spike's Guide to Success

with Richard St. John

- The NEW Science: The Trouble with Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next with Lee Smolin

7 p.m.

- Heart Matters: An Evening with Adrienne Clarkson (at the Chateau Laurier)

8 p.m.

- Faith, Hope and Clarity: Three Staged Play Readings by Emily Kisko, Amanda Doiron and Jamie Snasdell-Taylor

- Poetry Cabaret featuring Ronnie Brown, Jon Paul Fiorentino and Afua Cooper

 

Monday

7 p.m.

- Music, Magic and the Imagination with Charles de Lint and musicians

- The BIG IDEA: Sea of Faith Islam and Christianity in the Middle Ages with Stephen O'Shea

8:30 p.m.

- Book Launch: Wyrwood by Daniel Heath Justice

- Writing Life #1 with Randy Boyagoda, Leo Brent Robillard and Anita Rau Badami

All sessions at Library and Archives Canada,

395 Wellington St.,

unless otherwise noted.

For information and tickets phone 613-562-1243 or visit www.writersfest.com

 

Tuesday

6 p.m.

- Dead Alive #10 with Murray Wilson

7 p.m.

- Hunkamooga's Return: Stuart Ross

7:30 p.m.

- Book Launch: Reading Writers Reading with Danielle Schaub

8:30 p.m.

- Criminal Minds: Featuring Louise Penny, David Hewson and Rick Mofina

9 p.m.

- TREE Reading Series presents Form and Function featuring Daphne Marlatt, Mark Frutkin and Paul Glennon

 

Wednesday

7 p.m.

- I Was a Child of Holocaust Survivors with Bernice Eisenstein

- ByWords Presents the John Newlove Award

8:30 p.m.

- World War II, Escape, and a House in Marseille with Rosemary Sullivan

- Writing Life #2 with Steven Heighton, Trevor Cole and Kenneth J. Harvey

 

Thursday

7 p.m.

- On Thin Ice: Polar Bears in a Climate of Change with Jamie Bastedo, Darren Keith and Jerry Arqviq.

- The Way it Works with Eddie Goldenberg

8:30 p.m.

- CD Launch 'Hail' featuring the poetry of Seymour Mayne put to music composed by John Armstrong, and sung by Doreen Taylor-Claxton with special guest Betty Warrington-Kearsley

- Writing Life #3 with Bill Gaston, Richard Teleky and Michael Redhill

10 p.m.

- Songwriters Circle: Jim Bryson is joined by fellow singer-songwriters Oh Susanna and Lynn Miles with special guest Jowi Taylor and the Six String Nation Guitar.

 

Friday

7 p.m.

- Causeway: A Passage From Innocence with Linden MacIntyre

- Hockey Night at the Festival featuring Bill Gaston and Chris Robinson

8:30 p.m.

- Writing Life #4 with Maureen Lennon, Mark Foss and Dennis Bock

- Transgress presented by Capital Xtra featuring Sky Gilbert, Ivan E. Coyote, Matthew Firth and Marnie Woodrow

10 p.m.

- CD Launch: Hippie Campfire

 

Saturday

Noon

- Literary Atlas of Canada with Noah Richler

2 p.m.

- For Honour's Sake: The War of 1812 with Mark Zuehlke

- Rap Canterbury Tales with Baba Brinkman

4 p.m.

- John A. Macdonald's Private Demons with Patricia Phenix

- Celebrating Ottawa Magazine's Fiction issue with Nichole McGill, Anita Lahey and Alan Cumyn

6 p.m.

- Writing Life #5 featuring Paul William Roberts, Jean McNeil and Simon Ings

8 p.m.

- The Custodian of Paradise: An Evening with Wayne Johnston

Ran with fact box "Ottawa International Writers Festival at a Glance", which has been appended to the story.