Skip to main content

Toronto’s 40th Festival of Authors: Anthony De Sa

Last night, I attended a marvelous reading and discussion with the author Anthony De Sa and Wilfried N'Sonde. Both authors were amazing, and revealed the excellent approaches they took about research and their backgrounds and how they contributed to their work. Both were WRITERS first, their backgrounds were just pieces which informed their writings-not characteristics by which they needed to be pigeonholed.
I admit, that I came because De Sa had grown up in the Portuguese neighborhood of Toronto, and I had read Barnacle Love while in the Azores. There aren't enough children of Portuguese immigrants writing fiction today and I loved what I had encountered-feeling as if I was not alone in the experience.
De Sa's new book is about Mozambique, Children of the Moon.  In an aside, he revealed that even though his uncles had fought in the wars (including Angola and Guinea), he had never gotten a fuller story out of them.  When I probed further, he mentioned how difficult it was for them-the strong macho characteristic against the idea of losing a war-and what they had to go through-and make other people endure. De Sa mentioned that everything in the media in the 1960's was about America and Vietnam. And sometimes stories came out of that war-or WWII, which made the soldiers feel like they were fighting for a noble cause.  But colonialism is harder to reconcile and understand.  
I've yet to get the fuller stories from my own uncles. I want to know. War is never easy for anyone, but I hope they have been able to process their memories and make some meaning out of them. I'd love to hear it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Turn to Tech Scam

I recently had an interaction with a company called  Turn To Tech , who are offering to train people and then postponing payment until after you've gotten a job. Standard, right? Except their pitch is heavy on the sales and less on the info.  I filled out a simple, online form and their first email response was: "Are you available to come in to discuss the course?  The class is a pay after you receive a job type of course, however it will require some pre-work assessment , etc.  That can be gone over with you when you come in.  " Of course? Standard grammar not required. "A-Pay-After-You-Receive-A-Job-Type" of course.  Of course, you could call it an "Income Based Payment". I had to ask 3 more times how much the class would be before and after. "It is $6,000 before the course is complete if you do not want to approach the pay after you receive a job, which is $9,000."  This makes the government look good. Get me back my 6.7% rate...
Post a Comment
Read more

Network is the Broadway Play Worth Watching

Of all the big plays of the moment, no play does a better homage to the spirit of the tale than Network-currently starring Bryan Cranston.  It’s a perfect American story-created in England. The surrounding immersive media is just the beginning.  The line “I’m Mad as Hell” is presented perfectly the first time, and then highlighted as a regular battle cry-you wonder if this is made from a movie from the 1970’s (it was) or if it was written tomorrow. It takes too much of the insanity of the media-centric world to too many logical conclusions. It plays with your mind over and over, as if media is just an extended magic trick-constantly diverting your attention. For this play, it’s worth it to pay attention.
Post a Comment
Read more

Indy Theater Creates Gentrification

Economic analysis of NYC's current takeover by the 1%. It used to be the land of Patti Smith, but now she tells all the artists to find a new city. Joseph Steiglitz ( and his book :"Rewriting the Rules of the American Economy") is on Leonard Lopate's WNYC show right now.  The US has the highest level of income inequality, it's the rules & policies which are systematically creating these conditions.  He's saying that the idea of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, the "American Dream" is dead.  And not because of the ideas we market to ourselves or the politics we cling to.  It happens little by little, because of laws and bills that are designed to protect Market Power (see the simple concept of "Perfect Competition"). The same concepts can apply to theater. " Ladies & Gentlemen, Lower Your Prices? "! The article discusses why theaters raise prices. They do, and scare away exactly the audiences they are looking f...
Post a Comment
Read more