LiterASIAN 2018 Returns, September 21 to September 23, 2018

Launched in 2013, LiterASIAN is an annual festival of Pacific Rim Asian Canadian writing and a community-building initiative of the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop (ACWW).

The first of its kind within Canada, the festival’s purpose is to promote and celebrate the works of Asian Canadian writers and artists through author readings, panel discussions, and workshop events, creating important and unique networking opportunities between professional and emerging writers, students, and members of the broader public to learn and discuss topics of importance to Asian Canadian writing. The festival also fosters stimulating discussions that inspire participating artists to converse, debate, and develop new work that revolves around Asian Canadian writing.

Explore "Powder and Paint" with PCHC-MoM & Museum Bento as Part of Open Doors Richmond

Join PCHC-MoM and Museum Bento on Saturday June 2 and Sunday June 3 at the Richmond Museum for this year’s Doors Open Richmond, a weekend-long, city-wide celebration of heritage, culture and the arts.  On Saturday June 2, Museum Bento will be displaying different objects from the Powder and Paint: Cantonese Opera and Immigrant Experience box, developed in conjunction with PCHC-MoM, where you can learn about how Cantonese opera shaped the lives of early Chinese immigrants in Canada. You'll have a chance to explore and interact with the items inside the box, ranging from opera masks and dolls to a model of an opera stage.  It will also be engaging in a fun, interactive paper mask-making, where you can create your own unique Cantonese opera mask to bring home!

For more information about the Doors Open programme, please click here.

Location and Time

11:00am-3:00pm
Richmond Museum
7700 Minoru Gate
Richmond, BC
V6Y 1R9

Kim Thúy Talks About Her Novel "Vi" at the University of Toronto, May 7 as part of Asian Heritage Month

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The youngest of four children and the only girl, Vi was given a name that meant "precious, tiny
one," destined to be cosseted and protected, the family's little treasure.  Daughter of an enterprising mother and a wealthy, spoiled father who never had to grow up, the Vietnam War destroys the life they've known. Vi, along with her mother and brothers, manages to escape-- but her father stays behind, leaving a painful void as the rest of the family must make a new life for themselves in Canada.

While her family puts down roots, life has different plans for Vi. As a young woman, she finds the
world opening up to her. Taken under the wing of Hà, a worldly family friend, and her diplomat
lover, Vi tests personal boundaries and crosses international ones, letting the winds of life buffet
her. From Saigon to Montreal, from Suzhou to Boston to the fall of the Berlin Wall, she is witness to
the immensity of the world, the intricate fabric of humanity, the complexity of love, the infinite
possibilities before her. Ever the quiet observer, somehow she must find a way to finally take her
place in the world.

Born in Saigon in 1968, Kim Thúy left Vietnam with the boat people at the age of ten and settled
with her family in Quebec. A graduate in translation and law, she has worked as a seamstress,
interpreter, lawyer, restaurant owner, and commentator on radio and television. She lives in
Montreal and devotes herself to writing.

Sheila Fischman is the award-winning translator of some 150 contemporary novels from Quebec.
In 2008 she was awarded the Molson Prize in the Arts. She is a Member of the Order of Canada and
a chevalier of the Ordre national du Québec. She lives in Montreal.Praise for Vi and Kim Thúy.

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"A voyage into the Vietnamese soul, a story of rupture and a long rebirth of the self, Vi is a novel that is at once astonishing and energizing, one that pays magnificent homage to the quiet power of women"—ELLE France

"Kim Thúy is one of the most interesting new voices in Canadian literature." —CBC Books

“With Kim Thúy, past and present are never very far apart.” — La Vie

ACWW and University of Toronto presents Kim Thuy on May 7, 2018

The Asian Canadian Writers' Workshop (ACWW) is expanding across Canada, starting with a Toronto chapter, led by author JF Garrard and Dr. Lisa Rose Mar, Richard Charles Lee Chair in Chinese Canadian Studies.  ACWW and the University of Toronto are proud to host Kim Thúy, who will be reading from her novel Vi followed by audience Q&A as part of Asian Heritage Month.  Born in Saigon in 1968, Kim left Vietnam with the boat people at the age of ten and settled with her family in Quebec. A graduate in translation and law, she has worked as a seamstress, interpreter, lawyer, restaurant owner, and commentator on radio and television. She lives in Montreal and devotes herself to writing.

CBC News describes Vi as “exploring the lives, loves and struggles of Vietnamese refugees as they reinvent themselves in new lands.”

The book will be available for sale at the venue.  To register, please go to: https://munkschool.utoronto.ca/ai/event/25264/register/

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Monday, May 7, 2018, 5:30PM-7:30PM at Munk School of Global Affairs (208N, North House, 1 Devonshire Place)

Screening Conversation of Boundary 也斯：東西 on May 8, 7.00pm

Tuesday, 8 May 2018, 7 pm (doors open @ 6:30 pm)
Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden
578 Carrall Street, Vancouver
Free and open to the public
English/Chinese subtitles (138 mins | 2015 | Trailer)

A City Inscribed event. Registration is required.

In 2009, when the idea of producing a documentary first emerged, Ye Si 也斯 (pen name of Leung Ping-kwan 梁秉鈞, 1949–2013) offered this suggestion: “If you want to understand me, you should get acquainted with my friends. You will find part of me in each of them.” And thus began an exploration—through the eyes of academics, writers, artists, fashion designers, food connoisseurs, as well as Ye Si’s family—of an extraordinary literary life, a journey that was intricately linked to the cosmopolitanism that was, and is, Hong Kong.

Dr. WONG King Fai is an award-winning film director, screenwriter, and novelist. He is the director of 1918 and Boundary, which document, respectively, the literary lives of Liu Yichang (1918–) and Ye Si (1949–2013), two of the most-celebrated writers of Hong Kong. Dr. Wong’s screenplay for the film Life without Principle (2011) has garnered a number of prestigious awards, including the Best Original Screenplay (the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards), the Best Screenwriter (Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards), and the Best Screenwriter (Chinese Film Media Awards). Dr. Wong has published two collections of short stories and is Chief Editor of the series “Literature and Cinema” (Hong Kong University Press). Dr. Wong has been named the 2018 Best Artist (Arts Criticism) by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.

This community screening is organized by UBC Hong Kong Studies Initiative and co-sponsored by Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Classical Chinese Garden, Chinese Canadian Writers’ Association, Vancouver Hong Kong Forum Society, Youth Collaborative for Chinatown, Vancouver Asian Film Festival, Ricepaper Magazine, LiterASIAN Festival, explorASIAN/VAHMS, PCHC–MoM Society, and Institute for Transpacific Cultural Research (SFU).

ACWW is proud to Support 1967/1997: Reflections on Hong Kong Literature and Cinema

Saturday, 12 May 2018, 2 pm
Centre A
268 Keefer St., Vancouver
Free and open to the public
(Program in Cantonese)

A City Inscribed event. Registration is required.

How has the literature and cinema of Hong Kong responded to major transformations? In particular, how have the upheavals associated with the 1967 riots and the 1997 handover been marked by the literary and the visual? Come join Dr. Mary Shuk-Han Wong of Lingnan University and award-winning director Dr. Wong King Fai for a conversation about the past and present of Hong Kong literature and cinema.

Dr. Mary Shuk-Han WONG is an associate professor in the Department of Chinese at Lingnan University, Hong Kong. She has published widely on film and literature. She is the author of Feminine Writing: Cinema, Literature and Everyday Live (2014) and Hong Kong Cinema: Writer, Literature and Cinema (2013). Major edited works include the “Hong Kong Literature and Culture of the 1950s” series (2013) and the “Hong Kong Literature and Culture of the 1960s” series (2018). She is also a novelist and essayist. Major creative works include Against the Grain (2017), From Kafka (2015), and an award-winning collection of short stories, Surviving Central (2013). She is also the co-producer of the documentaries 1918 (2015) and Boundary (2015). An edited anthology, Hong Kong 1960s, is scheduled to appear in June 2018.

Dr. WONG King Fai is an award-winning film director, screenwriter, and novelist. He is the director of 1918 and Boundary, which document, respectively, the literary lives of Liu Yichang (1918–) and Ye Si (1949–2013), two of the most-celebrated writers of Hong Kong. Dr. Wong’s screenplay for the film Life without Principle (2011) has garnered a number of prestigious awards, including the Best Original Screenplay (the Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards), the Best Screenwriter (Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards), and the Best Screenwriter (Chinese Film Media Awards). Dr. Wong has published two collections of short stories and is Chief Editor of the series “Literature and Cinema” (Hong Kong University Press). Dr. Wong has been named the 2018 Best Artist (Arts Criticism) by the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.