2023 PEN Canada Graeme Gibson Talk

Masha Gessen, Andrey Kurkov, Margaret Atwood and Nahlah Ayed

2023 PEN Canada Graeme Gibson Talk

Masha Gessen, Andrey Kurkov, Margaret Atwood and Nahlah Ayed

4:00pm

Sunday, September 24, 2023

Harbourfront Centre Theatre

90 mins

The Toronto International Festival of Authors, in partnership with PEN Canada and CBC Radio’s IDEAS, presents Notes On An Invasion: Masha Gessen and Andrey Kurkov in conversation on Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

One of Ukraine’s most celebrated writers, Kurkov worked as a journalist in Ukraine and did his military service as a prison warder in Odessa before becoming the author of critically acclaimed novels and non-fiction books, including Diary of an Invasion, a first-hand account of the invasion of Ukraine. New Yorker staff writer Gessen is a renowned Russian-American journalist and thinker who has written widely on Russia’s descent into totalitarianism under Vladimir Putin and its global consequences.

Margaret Atwood will provide the introduction to the evening’s subject and authors— both featured speakers have urgent knowledge of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the geopolitical forces at work as well as the political figures behind those forces.

Their conversation, moderated by CBC Radio IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed, will be the third annual PEN Canada Graeme Gibson talk at TIFA, a series founded in 2021 to honour the legacy of renowned Canadian author and writers’ advocate, Graeme Gibson (1934–2019).

This event is supported by its founding sponsor Penguin Random House, and will be recorded by CBC Radio IDEAS. It is produced in partnership by PEN Canada, the Toronto International Festival of Authors and CBC Radio IDEAS.

PEN Canada Logo    Toronto International Festival of Authors logo - Festival Dates: September 21 to October 1, 2023       CBC Ideas logo with radio for the mind tagline        Penguin Random House Canada

Conversation

How to attend

$39.99

Single Day Pass

$69.99

Weekend Pass

$249.99

Full Festival Pass

Students and youth save up to 50% on passes.

The Toronto International Festival of Authors, in partnership with PEN Canada and CBC Radio’s IDEAS, presents Notes On An Invasion: Masha Gessen and Andrey Kurkov in conversation on Russia’s ongoing war in Ukraine.

One of Ukraine’s most celebrated writers, Kurkov worked as a journalist in Ukraine and did his military service as a prison warder in Odessa before becoming the author of critically acclaimed novels and non-fiction books, including Diary of an Invasion, a first-hand account of the invasion of Ukraine. New Yorker staff writer Gessen is a renowned Russian-American journalist and thinker who has written widely on Russia’s descent into totalitarianism under Vladimir Putin and its global consequences.

Margaret Atwood will provide the introduction to the evening’s subject and authors— both featured speakers have urgent knowledge of the ongoing war in Ukraine, the geopolitical forces at work as well as the political figures behind those forces.

Their conversation, moderated by CBC Radio IDEAS host Nahlah Ayed, will be the third annual PEN Canada Graeme Gibson talk at TIFA, a series founded in 2021 to honour the legacy of renowned Canadian author and writers’ advocate, Graeme Gibson (1934–2019).

This event is supported by its founding sponsor Penguin Random House, and will be recorded by CBC Radio IDEAS. It is produced in partnership by PEN Canada, the Toronto International Festival of Authors and CBC Radio IDEAS.

PEN Canada Logo    Toronto International Festival of Authors logo - Festival Dates: September 21 to October 1, 2023       CBC Ideas logo with radio for the mind tagline        Penguin Random House Canada

Conversation

Featured Authors

Masha Gessen
Masha Gessen is the author of 12 books, including the National Book Award–winning The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia and The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin. A staff writer at the New Yorker and the recipient of numerous awards, including Guggenheim and Carnegie fellowships, Gessen is Distinguished Professor at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism of the City University of New York.

Read more about Masha Gessen

Andrey Kurkov
Andrey Kurkov, born near Leningrad in 1961, was a journalist, prison warder, cameraman and screenplay-writer before he became well known as a novelist. He received “hundreds of rejections” and was a pioneer of self-publishing, selling more than 75,000 copies of his books in a single year. His novel Death and the Penguin, his first in English translation, became an international bestseller, translated into more than thirty languages. As well as writing fiction for adults and children, he has become known as a commentator and journalist on Ukraine for the international media. His works of reportage include Ukraine Diaries: Dispatches from Kiev (2014) followed by Diary of An Invasion (2022). His most recent novel is Grey Bees (2018). He lives in Kyiv with his British wife and their three children.

Read more about Andrey Kurkov

Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood, whose work has been published in more than forty-five countries, is the author of more than fifty books of fiction, poetry, critical essays, and graphic novels. In addition to The Handmaid’s Tale, now an award-winning TV series, her novels include Cat’s Eye, short-listed for the 1989 Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; The Blind Assassin, winner of the 2000 Booker Prize; Oryx and Crake, short-listed for the 2003 Man Booker Prize; The Year of the Flood, MaddAddam; and Hag-Seed. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, the Franz Kafka Prize, the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Los Angeles Times Innovator’s Award. In 2019, she was made a member of the Order of the Companions of Honour for services to literature.

Read more about Margaret Atwood

Nahlah Ayed
Nahlah Ayed, the host of CBC Radio’s Ideas, is an award-winning veteran foreign news reporter who spent nearly a decade in the Middle East covering the region's many conflicts, and later in London where she covered major stories from Russia's annexation of Crimea, Europe's refugee crisis; and the Brexit vote and its fallout. In 2012, her memoir, A Thousand Farewells: A Reporter's Journey From Refugee Camp to the Arab Spring, was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award. Nahlah was born and raised (mostly) in Winnipeg, Canada.

Read more about Nahlah Ayed

4:00pm

Sunday, September 24

Harbourfront Centre Theatre

90 mins

How to attend

$39.99

Single Day Pass

$69.99

Weekend Pass

$249.99

Full Festival Pass

Students and youth save up to 50% on passes.

What to read

Diary of an Invasion by , Surviving Autocracy by ,
TIFA 2023

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