We are thrilled to invite you to a roundtable and launch of Larissa Lai’s co-edited book Land/Relations: Possibilities of Justice in Canadian Literatures (Wilfrid Laurier UP, 2023)

Ro Averin and Gulabuddin Sukhanwar will join Larissa Lai in this roundtable conversation and share their experiences on social justice and community work from a local perspective.

Libe García Zarranz (English, ILU, NTNU) will have an opening remarks and the conversation led by Carl Martin Faurby, Programme Curator at Kunsthall Trondheim.

This event marks a collaboration between the research groups TransLit: Sustainable Ethics, Affects and Pedagogies (NTNU) (https://www.ntnu.edu/ilu/translit) ENVIROCEN (OULU/NTNU) (https://www.oulu.fi/en/projects/envirocen), Kunsthall Trondheim and Literature for inclusion at the House of Literature in Trondheim.

𝐋𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐬𝐬𝐚 𝐋𝐚𝐢 (she/her) is the author of nine books including the novels 𝑆𝑎𝑙𝑡 𝐹𝑖𝑠ℎ 𝐺𝑖𝑟𝑙, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑖𝑔𝑒𝑟 𝐹𝑙𝑢, and most recently 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝐿𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝐶𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑢𝑟𝑦, just released in October 2022. Recipient of the Jim Duggins Novelist’s Prize, the Lambda Literary Award, the Astraea Award, and the Otherwise Honor Book and twice finalist for the City of Calgary W.O. Mitchell Award, she has also been a finalist for the Books in Canada First Novel Award, the Lambda Award, the Sunburst Award , the bpNichol Chapbook Award, the Dorothy Livesay Prize, the ACQL Gabrielle Roy Prize for Literary Criticism and a Governor General’s award for the French translation of 𝑆𝑎𝑙𝑡 𝐹𝑖𝑠ℎ 𝑔𝑖𝑟𝑙, entitled 𝐿𝑒 𝐹𝑟𝑢𝑖𝑡 𝑑𝑒 𝑙𝑎 𝑃𝑢𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑒𝑢𝑟.

She is currently Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Calgary where she serves as Canada Research Chair II in the Department of English and directs The Insurgent Architects’ House for Creative Writing. She is also currently Maria Zambrano Fellow in the Department of English and Philology at the University of Huelva in Spain. Her interests include Asian Canadian literature, speculative fiction, experimental poetry and poetics, queer theory and the politics and poetics of relation.

𝐑𝐨 𝐀𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧 (they/she) is a writer, consultant, researcher, and educator centering mindful and intersectional approaches to social, racial, and environmental justice, currently through doctoral research in NTNU’s Department of Teacher Education, through UNLRN PRJCT, and in the arts through Rafiki Art Initiatives. With roots in Turtle Island/Canada, Ro now calls Sápmi/Northern Norway home.

Gulabuddin Sukhanwar is the program coordinator at the House of Literature in Trondheim where he led Literature for Inclusion and Poetry without Borders initiatives. Sukhanwar is also a member of the literature committee at Arts Council Norway. He has background in cultural heritage studies and religion studies from NTNU.

Venue: Litteraturhuset
Time of event: 19:00-21:00.
Free entrance. Tickets can be reserved via Hoopla.

Picture: Larissa Lai, Ro Averin and Gulabuddin Sukhanwar (photo: BERRE)