North Island College’s Write Here Readers Series welcomes best-selling author Sharon Butala to its Campbell River and Comox Valley campuses this week.
One of Canada’s true visionaries, Butala will read from The Girl in Saskatoon: A Meditation of Friendship, Memory and Murder.
Butala returns to 1961 to reconstruct the haunting unsolved murder of a friend, while also telling a nostalgic coming of age story of a young country girl. This powerful read also explores the nature of good and evil, and the true meaning of life.
Butala’s work speaks to the collision of geography and spirituality, blending myth and truth with the Canadian landscapes that she loves.
Always interested in the stories of women, she endeavours to represent new viewpoints as she reinterprets Western society, and her stories don’t hesitate to use the brutal, the unpleasant, or the shocking to peel away the layers of rural life.
“Butala’s work is full of sense and wonder,” writes Alexis Kienlen of the Daily Herald Tribune.
Neil Besner, in Perspectives of Saskatchewan, adds “…(a) major work …monumental … I do not think there is another writer in Canada with the vision to bring this kind of story so fully into being.”
Butala is the recipient of the Marian Engel Award, and has twice been nominated for the Governor-General’s Award.
She has Bachelor of Arts and education degrees from the University of Saskatchewan, and has received three honourary doctorates. To date she has authored 16 books and produced five plays.
After appearing Wednesday in Campbell River,
Butala will read at the Stan Hagen Theatre on NIC’s Comox Valley campus on Feb. 27 at 7:30 p.m.
These events are free to attend and open to the community. Seating is on a first-come, first-seated basis.
The Write Here Readers Series began in 2010 and continues to showcase Canadian authors for NIC students and members of our communities to experience.
For more information about the Sharon Butala reading or the Write Here Readers Series, contact Susan Auchterlonie at 250-334-5271.
— North Island College
