Festival events had a lot to offer
Aboriginal life, feminism, Renaissance art
Aboriginal thinkers, feminist thriller writers and an author who has spun art history into novels were the subjects of three Vancouver Writers Fest events last weekend.
These were just three presentations of dozens that the festival hosted on Granville Island, many of which sold out.
The first event, The Way Forward, featured aboriginal or Metis writers including poet Marilyn Dumont, novelist Tracey Lindberg and journalist Wab Kinew, who has written The Reason You Walk, the story of his relationship with his father.
The sold-out session was definitely thought-provoking. When an audience member asked the panel what the next steps would be in reconciliation, a panel member, I think it was Kinew, put it back on the audience, saying it shouldn’t be up to aboriginals to come up with the plan. Instead, he wanted to know what audience members were planning to do to achieve reconciliation.
There was much discussion about the federal election, with hope expressed that the new government, which includes a number of aboriginal MPs, will make things better. Kinew, a very powerful speaker, said the first priority should be to ensure aboriginal people have safe housing, healthy drinking water and equal access to education.
Women in Peril was the subject of the second session, which included four novelists: Canadians Elisabeth de Mariaffi and Susan Philpott, American Roxane Gay and blockbuster-bestseller British writer Paula Hawkins, author of The Girl on the Train.
All four wrote books in which women were threatened or abused and while the discussion began mostly talking about that — why do women have to live in constant fear? — it evolved into a discussion of feminism, with all four authors agreeing their novels were “feminist” novels.
On Sunday, British author Sarah Dunant, who wrote The Birth of Venus and several other Renaissance-based novels, told festivalgoers about how she found the characters for her novels in Italian art.
She was in Florence in 2000 looking for new inspiration after writing a series of mystery novels. She explored the city’s art, and found few depictions of real women. When she did discover some authentic women, meaning those who were not meant to be goddesses, like Venus, she found she had an idea for a character. That idea grew into the lead character in The Birth of Venus. From there, she explored courtesans in Venice and the world behind convent doors in Ferrara, also using characters found in art for her inspiration.
Dunant’s lecture was fascinating and accompanied by big- screen images of Italian Renaissance art to illustrate the facets of everyday life that she uncovered.
All in all, these were three excellent and thought-provoking events, and they were just a small portion of what the festival has to offer.