Well Read Sept. - with Daria Salamon

Daria Salamon is a local freelance writer whose work has been shortlisted for the Larry Turner Award for Non-Fiction, the Canadian Authors Association’s North of 55 Writing Contest and the Writers’ Union of Canada’s Emerging Writer Short Fiction Award. Her well-received debut novel, The Prairie Bridesmaid, was released this summer.

I’ve just read…
I have just finished a gripping book, The Cellist of Sarajevo by Steven Galloway. It’s the story of how humans struggle to find dignity amidst war. As the civil war rips apart Sarajevo the citizens come to accept that they might be shot while doing something as simple as collecting drinking water. And while the book is utterly heartwrenching (I had a lump in my throat for a lot of it), there are these moments of hope. Kenan, one of the main protagonists says, “…the character of those who will build the city again is more important than the makeup of those who destroyed it.”

I am currently reading…
I have been gradually working my way through a mammoth book called The Fate of Africa by Martin Meredith. It is a country-by-country depiction of what has happened and is happening in each African nation since achieving independence. It’s very readable, and fascinating to see how the course of so much suffering was set. I’m taking some students to Tanzania in 2010, so I want to develop a comprehensive understanding of the continent.
I’m also reading Chandra Mayor’s short story collection All The Pretty Girls. Her writing is both poetic and funny; the dialogue is so sharp and the stories are set in Winnipeg! It’s a great read.

 
I plan to read…
I am looking very forward to reading Winnipeg writer Joan Thomas’ new novel Reading by Lightning. The story is told from the perspective of William Piper’s daughter, Lily, when she is sixteen. William Piper came to Canada as part of the Barr Colonists, a British movement that was afraid Canada was being overtaken by Eastern European settlers. It’s a love story about a young girl developing her sense of self.