Canisa Lubrin and Hind Shoufani in their latest poetry collections explore the place of art and poetry to offer light and beauty in the darkest times. Canisia Lubrin, already critically acclaimed and internationally celebrated, is one of Canada’s most exciting and provocative poets. Bright Machine is her highly anticipated new collection which, as ever, is […]
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Two masters of writing with humour and heart, Glenn Dixon and Terry Fallis, take to the stage to discuss their latest novels. Dixon’s The Infinite Sadness of Small Appliances, household appliances are sentient and a vacuum starts to crave human connection and sets out on a journey of self-discovery. In Fallis’ An End in Itself, […]
Calling all birdwatchers, twitchers and nature lovers! Join us for a conversation celebrating the wonderful birdlife of Ontario and beyond. Jackie Morris’s stunningly beautiful artwork in The Book of Birds (written by Robert Macfarlane) offers a breathtaking illustrated exploration of birds, their habitats, and their habits, while Mark Peck and Emily Rondel’s A Field Guide […]
Each year, TIFA’s International Visitors (IV) Programme welcomes publishing leaders from around the world to discover the richness and diversity of Canadian writing and publishing. This year’s keynote welcomes one of the most influential figures in global bookselling, James Daunt, founder of Daunt Books and the bookseller credited with revitalizing Waterstones and Barnes & Noble. […]
Winner of the 2025 Booker Prize, David Szalay’s Flesh is a spare, hypnotic novel about the forces that shape a life. From a housing estate in Hungary to the world of London’s super-rich, it follows István across decades as sex, violence, chance, money and power propel him through a life he rarely seems able to […]
Paris in the years surrounding WWII was a city alive with art, ideas and possibility—but beneath the glamour, tensions were mounting. Join Mark Braude, author of The Typewriter and the Guillotine, and Jane Rogoyska, author of Hotel Exile, for a fascinating conversation about the writers, artists and émigrés who found themselves in Paris as Europe […]
What does it mean to love a country—and what happens when patriotism becomes a tool for power? Join writer, lawyer, and former foreign policy advisor Omar Aziz (Shadows of the Republic), and Carol Off, former co-host of CBC’s As It Happens and author of True Patriot Love, for a timely conversation about patriotism, democracy, identity […]
Booker Prize-shortlisted Canadian author Patrick deWitt returns with Dodge City, a rollicking road novel set against the upheavals of 1967 America. When 23-year-old Lee Clarke receives his Vietnam draft notice, he makes the first political decision of his life: to flee north to Canada. Armed with a suitcase, a bag of amphetamines and a showroom-new […]
A stone appears in a woman’s pocket like a charm only to end up lodged in someone else’s throat. A man becomes weightless, bobbing around on the ceiling, nauseated every time he is brought down and tethered to the earth. Just two of the plots from Jess Gibson and Tomás Downey’s new story collections highlighting […]
What happens when the expectations placed on women become impossible to ignore? Harriet Alida Lye and Vivek Shraya come together to explore the complexities of identity, family, grief, and desire. Lye’s Motherclown follows a mother and daughter as they deal with their grief and resentment towards each other. In Shraya’s The Hystericals a woman grapples […]
Norwegian author Rune Christiansen comes together with Métis author Tara Gereaux for a fascinating conversation about hidden identities and the complicated search for belonging. In Christiansen’s novel, The Case of the Caprice of Lost Time, a woman returns to her estranged father after her mother’s death, only to uncover mysteries that force her to reconsider […]
How do we find meaning when certainty feels out of reach? Join Gillian Deacon, author of Love Affair with the Unknown: Leaning into the Uncertainty of Modern Life, and Kim Echlin, author of Tell Others, for a timely and thought-provoking conversation about uncertainty, storytelling and how we navigate a complicated world. Veteran journalist and former […]
Join acclaimed Canadian poet and novelist Lisa Robertson, author of The Baudelaire Fractal, as she presents her latest novel, Riverwork. The novel follows Lucy Frost, a domestic worker in Paris who becomes captivated by the buried Bièvre river and the notebooks of her vanished great-aunt, a researcher who spent years tracing its history. As Lucy […]
Marie NDiaye will no longer be appearing at the Festival. What do we inherit from the women who came before us—and what happens when that inheritance refuses to stay buried? Join Amanda Peters, author of The Birthing Tree, as she shares stories about family, motherhood, tradition and the secrets that shape generations. The story follows a […]
Booker-longlisted author Mohammed Hanif will appear at the Festival to present Rebel English Academy, a sharp, darkly funny novel set against the charged realities of contemporary Pakistan. Hanif turns his wry eye to the business of English and the complicated promises of education and social mobility. At its heart is a cast of unforgettable characters […]
Celebrated Tamil author Jeyamohan brings The Abyss, a raw, tender and darkly comic novel about human suffering, exploitation and the search for liberation. Set in 1991 Tamil Nadu, it follows Pothivelu Pandaram, a seemingly respectable, God-fearing man whose wealth comes from the cruel trade of exploiting disabled beggars for profit. When an impulsive deal upends […]
Akutagawa Prize-winning author Jose Ando and writer, editor, and musician Jared Bland, writing under the pen name Alex Spring, come together for a gripping conversation about crime, identity, community and justice. In Ando’s Jackson Alone, four queer, mixed-race Black Japanese men come together to investigate the sudden emergence of a violent pornographic video that features someone […]
Nyla Matuk’s Leila and Khaled and Ashraf Zaghal’s Seven Heavens Away explore love, loss and belonging through Palestinian lives shaped by displacement and conflict. In Matuk’s novel, a Palestinian-Canadian scholar returns to her ancestral homeland, where an encounter with a young Palestinian man forces her to confront her family’s exile and the enduring wounds of […]
Zak Jones’ Fancy Gap and Salha Obaid’s Circle of Spices take us from Appalachia to the Arabian Peninsula, tracing families shaped by secrets, loss and the legacies passed between generations. From evangelical fervour and opioid addiction to supernatural gifts and long-buried mysteries, their novels explore poverty, violence and forces beyond their characters’ control. Jones and […]
What stays with us as the years pass—and what does it take to make peace with the past? Join Anita Rau Badami, author of Asha in Her Garden, and Rabindranath Maharaj, author of A Quiet Disappearance, for a moving conversation about memory, migration, family ties and the fleeting nature of life. In Asha in Her […]
Some people spend years searching for something they may never find: an elusive animal, a lost treasure, an answer to a mystery that refuses to be solved. In What’s a Snow Leopard to You?, Chen-Fu Hsu traces a Taiwanese naturalist’s search for the snow leopard across Tibet, interwoven with the diary of a Japanese monk […]
World affairs in 2026 continue to be shaped by conflict between the United States and Iran. In King of Kings, Pulitzer Prize finalist and Kirkus Prize-winning author Scott Anderson provides much-needed historical perspective on current events, delivering a gripping account of the 1979 Iranian Revolution and the catastrophic miscalculations that helped reshape the Middle East. Drawing […]
Norwegian author Mona Høvring comes together with Joseph Kertes in a poignant conversation about their latest two novels. In Høvring’s Something That Helps, a lonely teenager in coastal Norway, haunted by her mother’s suicide, finds herself drawn into a transformative relationship with an older woman that sends her down a dark path toward reconciliation and […]
In his deeply personal book of essays, The Blood of Things: A Love Letter to Afghanistan, Jamaluddin Aram reflects on Afghanistan and his own displacement and exile, weaving family history, memories of Kabul, friendship and hope into an intimate portrait of a homeland transformed by war. In Raoul de Jong’s Jaguarman, de Jong travels into […]
