Toronto Women's Bookstore

Thursday, November 26th, 2009 7pm
Toronto Women’s Bookstore
73 Harbord Street (southwest corner at Spadina)
free. all welcome. refreshments provided
we regret our washroom is not wheelchair accessible

The Demons of Aquilonia by Lina Medaglia
A mesmerizing novel of betrayal, loss, and multiple identities, this is the story of Licia Giganteschi, for whom it takes half a lifetime to go back home, to a place she loves and hates at the same time. Licia grows up in the beautiful wilderness of a mountain village in Calabria, Italy. Born of terroni (farmers) with aspirations for their children, she is raised by Grazia, an introverted mother, and Marco, a guest-worker in Germany. She spends her time between the Zimpoli farm of her revolutionary, eccentric grandfather, and the suffocating scrutiny of her father's relatives in the village of Aquilonia.

When the call to immigrate to Canada comes, for Licia, it is a welcome call. But she could not have foreseen that the curse of the Giganteschis will follow the family to Toronto and beyond. When Licia finally returns home and retraces the steps of those who loved her and those who hurt her, she understands how her mother's life, and her own life, are intertwined with the mysterious women who were her mother's only friends: her uncle's mistress, a nun in a cave, and a witch who delivers babies.

Lina Medaglia was born and raised, until the age of eleven, in Italy. Her family immigrated to Toronto, Canada, in 1966. With her partner, she has written a number of musical projects including a three-hour modern opera entitled Casanova, a cd of progressive/political country music entitled Bald Eagle, and a cd of political rock entitled Dreamland and Other Conspiracies. She is also a poet, and has read her poetry at Toronto festivals, including Nuit Blanche. Lina Medaglia teaches, writes, and lives in downtown Toronto with her family. The Demons of Aquilonia is her first novel.

Letter Out: Letter In (poems) by Salimah Valiani
Using post-Apartheid South Africa as a point from which to reflect on Canada and beyond, Letter Out : Letter In is a poetry collection of social commentary, political-economic analysis, and philosophical meditation. Historic and persisting structures of racism, sexism and economic inequality are explored, but also the nature of gender and ethnic divisions within and among oppressed groups. Moving from critique, Letter Out : Letter In further proposes love as an alternative to the binary of competition/solidarity so prevalent in Western thought. The Sufi notion of love is defined and redefined at recurring moments in the collection, making use of poetic subtlety to offer a new vision in a fractured world.

Salimah Valiani is a poet, an activist and a researcher. She has lived and worked on four continents, reflecting a history of migration in the recent and far past of her Shia Muslim community. Valiani has published widely in a range of milieux. Her analytical work in social and economic policy has appeared in institutional publications of the various organizations with which she has worked, particularly in Canada, India, and South Africa. Her poems have been published in feminist publications, literary journals, and political magazines. In 2005 her first collection of poetry, breathing for breadth, was published. Her poetry has also appeared in Sarah Husain's politically-timely anthology, Voices of Resistance - Muslim Women Speak-out on War, Faith and Sexuality.

Co-sponsored by Inanna Publications www.yorku.ca/inanna