The Arts Council will launch its Author Readings Series for the fall with a reading by Ted Chamberlin on Oct. 13. Well known to Coast readers, J. Edward Chamberlin is a Professor Emeritus from the University of Toronto, a teacher of Comparative Literature, and a scholar accomplished across fields that extend from Oscar Wilde’s London to Aboriginal land claims. His most celebrated recent books include If This Is Your Land, Where Are Your Stories? and Island: How Islands Transform the World.
Chamberlin’s latest book, The Banker and the Blackfoot, is a family memoir, but it is also much more. With his usual insight and wide-ranging research, Chamberlin expands the memoir into a new vision of the early history of southern Alberta and a voice of hope in the ongoing debate about the collision between First Nations people and the settler society.
Chamberlin speaks to this subject from wide experience on the Berger Commission and the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples and as an international consultant on Aboriginal land claims in Canada, the U.S., Australia and Africa. He lives in Halfmoon Bay with his wife, the celebrated Jamaican poet, Lorna Goodison.
Come hear Chamberlin’s reading and join the lively discussion that will follow at the Sunshine Coast Arts Centre at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 13. Admission is by donation, courtesy of the Sunshine Coast Arts Council.
– By Dick Harrison
