The Okanagan may be a long way from the southeast Asian nation of Myanmar (formerly known as Burma), but a Canadian author who has ties to both areas is about to share what she’s observed when she visits Vernon.
Connelly, who was born in Calgary and has lived in Thailand, Spain, France, Greece, and Burma, is currently in the Okanagan as UBC Okanagan’s writer-in-residence, and will speak and read from her written works at the new upstairs salon in the Bean Scene Coffee House Monday.
This is a return to the valley for Connelly, who in 1990, won an award from local publisher Kalamalka Press for her first book of poetry, The Small Words In My Body.
The book would go on to win the Pat Lowther Award in 1991 for best book of poetry published by a Canadian woman.
Connelly also gained acclaim for her second book, 1993’s Touch The Dragon, A Thai Journal, which won the country’s highest honour for non-fiction writing, the Governor General’s Award.
“Karen has a number of links to Vernon and through Kalamalka Press, and to Okanagan College as well,” said John Lent, former writing professor and regional dean at Okanagan College, who has organized the reading at the Bean Scene. “Nancy Holmes, poet and creative writing professor at UBCO now, was Connelly’s first significant mentor.
“Suffice it to say, while producing this book, Karen worked with and became friends with a number of our own writers here, so we feel we have played a small role in the launching of this writer’s career and we’re so damned thrilled to have her back.”
The author of nine books of non-fiction, poetry and fiction, Connelly is probably best known for her 2005 best-selling novel, The Lizard Cage, which is set in the late 1980s, when millions of Burmese rose up to protest against the brutality of their military government.
Published in Europe and Canada, the book was compared in The New York Times book review to the works of Orwell, Solzhenitsyn, and Mandela, and hailed in The Globe and Mail as “one of the best modern Canadian novels.” It went on to win Britain’s Orange Broadband Prize for New Writers in 2007 and was shortlisted for the U.S. Kiriyama Prize, as well as longlisted for the Impac Dublin Award, both in 2006.
Connelly first visited Burma in 1996, as recounted in her most recent work, Burmese Lessons, A Love Story.
There to gather information for a series of articles about political prisoners, she says she discovered a place of unexpected beauty and generosity. She also encountered a country ruled by a brutal military dictatorship that imposed a code of censorship and terror.
While seeking out the regime’s critics, Connelly witnessed mass demonstrations, and attended protests, as well as interviewed detained opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. At one point, she had to flee from the riot police, and when it got too risky, she fled the country altogether to Thailand.
As part of her visit to the Okanagan, Connelly is also judging the short-listed story submissions for the Okanagan Short Story Contest.
She will accompany the announcement of the winners with a reading from her work, Thursday at the Kelowna branch of the Okanagan Regional Library. The three winners will also be invited to read excerpt from their stories.
Connelly’s reading at the Bean Scene takes place Monday from 7 to 9 p.m. Tickets are $10 in advance at the Bean Scene and $12 at the door.
