Event

Shani Mootoo, poet, novelist, short story writer and film-maker, will perform at the Gala Reading of Campus Literature Week 2011, hosted by the Department of Liberal Arts, The University of the West Indies (UWI).   

The Gala Reading, which will take place on Friday 18^th March, 2011, at 7pm, at the Centre for Language Learning (CLL) Auditorium, UWI, St Augustine, is the culmination of a series of daily Lunchtime Readings scheduled to take place from Monday 14^th to Friday 18^th March, from noon-1.30 pm, at the Audio-Visual Room, Third Floor, The Alma Jordan Library. All readings are free of charge and open to the public.   

This annual event, instituted in 1999 by Prof Funso Aiyejina, has provided a forum for writers in the UWI Masters in Fine Art (MFA) programme to showcase their work. The MFA Programme hosts a Writer-in-Residence, who gives public readings and talks about his/her writing and about literature with UWI students. The Department has hosted several esteemed writers including Earl Lovelace (1999, 2005, 2008), Olive Senior (2000, 2003), Jan Carew (2001), Austin Clarke (2002), Lawrence Scott (2004), Erna Brodber (2006), John Stewart (2007), Rachel Manley (2009), and M. NourbeSe Philip (2010).

To find out more, please contact Giselle Rampaul at Giselle.Rampaul@sta.uwi.edu or Geraldine Skeete at Geraldine.Skeete@sta.uwi.edu.

About Shani Mootoo

Shani Mootoo was born in Dublin, Ireland of Trinidadian parents. She is an internationally acclaimed writer, artist, and experimental filmmaker. Her written works include a collection of short stories (Out on Main Street), a book of poetry (The Predicament of Or), and the novels, Cereus Blooms at Night, which was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller prize and the Chapter's First Novel award, and longlisted for the Man Booker prize; He Drown She in the Sea, longlisted for the Dublin IMPAC award; and Valmiki's Daughter, longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller prize. The highlights of her filmmaking and visual arts career include a solo screening at New York City's Museum of Modern Art and exhibition in the Transculture show at the Venice Biennial. Mootoo has held the position of Writer in Residence at the University of Guelph and at the University of Alberta, and currently at the St. Augustine Campus of The University of the West Indies (UWI). Her novels have been translated into fourteen languages and regularly appear on course syllabi at universities around the world. Mootoo is using the Writer in Residence position at The UWI to complete a novel. She currently resides in Canada.