Sat, Oct 31  •  12:30pm

In Other Worlds

Portia Elan, Huang Chong‐Kai, and Jeremy Tiang

Join the authors for a conversation on speculative fiction across the globe and time

Fiction
Conversation
Pass Required
Passes available
View Passes
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In Other Worlds
In Other Worlds

Sat, Oct 31  •  12:30pm

In Other Worlds

Portia Elan, Huang Chong‐Kai, and Jeremy Tiang

Join the authors for a conversation on speculative fiction across the globe and time

Conversation
Fiction
Pass Required
Passes available
View Passes
↑

About

When worlds are turned upside down what happens when the stories we leave behind take on lives of their own? Join Portia Elan, Huang Chong-Kai, and Jeremy Tiang as they discuss their speculative fiction novels. Told through different perspectives, Huang’s The Formosa Exchange (translated by Tiang) chronicles the lives of Taiwanese and Cuban residents who have woken up to discover that they have switched spots, and now must grapple with living in their new homes. In Elan’s Homebound, four lives are tied together across centuries by an unfinished videogame and their longing for connection, exploring love, loss, technology and humanity’s search for home. Together, the authors will discuss how speculative fiction can reimagine our world, challenge our assumptions and reveal the connections that bind us across time and place.

On May 20, 2024, one day after the inauguration of Taiwan’s first Indigenous president, the entire population of the island wakes up to discover they have suddenly switched places with the residents of Cuba. Two multi-ethnic island communities with colonial histories suddenly find themselves facing baffling new questions, as well as the greedy weight of a new “mainland” hegemon. Huang Chong-Kai’s astonishing work of speculative realism opens new conversations on race, marginality, and the (re)telling of history by weaving multiple voices and genres into a single work.
Read more about The Formosa Exchange

Published by Honford Star

Cover of The Formosa Exchange

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A GOOD MORNING AMERICA BOOK CLUB PICK • In a dazzling ode to human inventiveness and desire for meaning, four lives are entangled across time by one unfinished story, saved to a floppy disk in the 1980s and destined to ripple across the centuries. “A joy...and a hauntingly beautiful exploration of what makes us human. It kept me up all night!” —MADELINE MILLER, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Song of Achilles "A big, bold, ecstatic world—full of heart and wonder.” —RUTH OZEKI, New York Times bestselling author of A Tale for the Time Being 1983.
Read more about Homebound

Published by Simon & Schuster Canada

Cover of Homebound

Image of Portia Elan
Portia Elan studied history at Stanford University and earned an MFA from the University of Victoria, British Columbia, before returning to California, where she has worked as a teacher and public librarian. A former Lambda Literary Fellow, she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her wife and an abundance of cats. Homebound is her first novel. 
Read more about Portia Elan

Image of Huang Chong‐Kai
Huang Chong‐Kai is a Taiwanese novelist. His works include Anti‐Gravity (反重力), The Broken (壞掉的人), Blue Fiction (黃色小說), The Contents of the Times ( 文藝春秋 ), and Further Than Pluto ( 比冥王星更遠的地方 ) (French and Japanese rights sold).
Read more about Huang Chong‐Kai

Image of Jeremy Tiang
Jeremy Tiang is a novelist, playwright and the translator of over thirty books from Chinese. He was awarded the Singapore Literature Prize for his novel State of Emergency and for his translation of Zhang Yueran’s Cocoon, and he won an Obie for his play Salesman之死.
Read more about Jeremy Tiang

Dates & Times

Sat, Oct 31
12:30pm
↑
1:30pm
A book signing will follow this event

Tickets

Full Festival Pass
SOLD OUT
Regular $159
Under 30 $79
5-Day Festival Pass
Includes 5-day festival events. Excludes Masterclasses.
Regular $159
Under 30 $79
2-Day Weekend
Includes all Victoria University events. Excludes Winter Garden Theatre events and Masterclasses.
Regular $69
Under 30 $39
1-Day Saturday
Includes all Saturday events.
Excludes Masterclasses.
Regular $39
Under 30 $29
Pass Information
5-Day Festival Pass includes Barbara Kingsolver and East West Street: A Song of Good & Evil .
2-Day Weekend and 1-Day Passes do not include Winter Garden Theatre events.
View Passes
↑

Venue

Alumni Hall, Victoria College
91 Charles St W, Toronto, ON

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