FORSYTHE’S TALENT LANDS HIM IN RICHLER’S CHAIR
Matthew Forsythe is a Montrealbased author, artist and illustrator. He is probably best-known for Ojingogo and Jinchalo, two small books of dream-logic narrative rooted in Korean folk tales. Both star a young girl and her squid as they wander far from their native village and attempt to make it back home.
Forsythe is a world-creator, exploiting the open-ended potential of his chosen form to the full. His work is kid-friendly, though not strictly kid-lit. If it’s not too corny to say it, it speaks to the child in all of us. An indication of his general wheelhouse is that his illustrations will grace the next Lemony Snicket book, due next fall. This would all be notable enough, but there’s another thing: Forsythe has been named Concordia University’s Mordecai Richler Writer in Residence for 2017. It’s the second year for the program, an initiative that encompasses a facsimile of Richler’s old writing room; the inaugural writer was Ann-Marie MacDonald.
Kudos are due to Concordia for its progressive-minded decision to place graphic literature
on the same level as any other kind; it represents a willingness to stretch conventional definitions of “writer,” and says that storytelling is no less the telling of stories when most (or even all) of the information is being conveyed through images and not text. Some of us have been on this particular soapbox for years. If Concordia’s choice is a sign that we’ll soon be able to rest our case completely, then all the better. Sure, some might harrumph, but then, a certain St-Urbain-associated
writer used to get some backs up, too.
Forsythe will be teaching a course in visual storytelling, working in the Richler Reading Room, and holding a public event in April — watch the Gazette Books page for more on that. It’s going to be an interesting year.
My wish for 2017: That the trend for French- and English-language readers discovering each others’ new young writers through translation continues to grow.