Tuesday 22 November 2011

QWF Awards Tonight: Michel Freitag's Book to Be Launched

Tonight is a big literary night. It's the Quebec Writers' Federation annual awards gala, and my good friends David Homel and Merrily Weisbord are up for prizes. Thank goodness they're contestants in different categories --David for Midway in fiction, and Merrily for The Love Queen of Malabar in non-fiction--or I'd have a hard time knowing who to root for. I've always thought David a severely under-recognized novelist, and another prize would be good for him. Merrily, whom I've known nearly as long as I've known David, gave me an introduction to the subject of the book in question, Kamala Das. Ms. Das opened many doors to me in Kochi, India, when I was doing research for my book Green City, and I'm very grateful to Merrily.

But before then, sociologist and philosophy Michel Freitag's last book L'Abime de la liberté will be launched tonight too. Yesterday was the second anniversary of his death, so the choice of the launch date seems particularly appropriate.

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