News Releases

The Amazing Rabindranath Maharaj for UWI Campus Literature Week 201

For Release Upon Receipt - March 11, 2013

St. Augustine


ST. AUGUSTINE, Trinidad and Tobago – Multiple-award winning Trinidadian author, Rabindranath Maharaj, headlines the festivities of The University of the West Indies (UWI) St. Augustine Campus’ annual Campus Literature Week, from Monday 18th-Friday 22nd March, 2013.

Organised by members of the MFA Creative Writing programme of the Department of Literary, Cultural and Communication Studies, Faculty of Humanities and Education (FHE), Campus Literature Week 2013 has two components. It begins with four days of Lunchtime Readings, where students of the MFA Creative Writing programme, as well as other writers from the Campus and public, will read from their own works of fiction. These readings will take place from Monday-Thursday of that week, from noon-1.30pm, at the Alma Jordan Library.

All will culminate with the Gala Reading and Closing Ceremony, where Maharaj will read from his award-winning novel, The Amazing Absorbing Boy. Guests will also be treated to a reading from a short film that Maharaj has recently completed, and will be invited to a cocktail reception following the ceremony. This event is carded for that Friday, at 7pm, at the Learning Resource Centre (LRC), UWI St. Augustine Campus.

Maharaj is currently Writer-in-Residence at the Campus, as part of the FHE’s MFA Creative Writing programme. The Amazing Absorbing Boy, his latest work, won the Trillium Fiction Award in 2010 and the City of Toronto Book Award in 2011.  Recently, this novel has also been optioned for film adaptation.

UWI St Augustine’s Campus Literature Week has been held almost every year since 2003 and has featured, in addition to readings by various specially-invited guests and MFA students, writers Olive Senior, Shani Mootoo, Earl Lovelace and Lawrence Scott.

For further information, please contact Dara Wilkinson at dara.wilkinson@my.uwi.edu, Serah Acham at serah.acham@my.uwi.edu, or visit Annual UWI Campus Literature Week, 2013 on Facebook.

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About the Author

Mr. Rabindranath Maharaj is the award-winning author of eight books, including five novels.  His latest novel, The Amazing Absorbing Boy, won both the Trillium Fiction Award and the City of Toronto Book Award.  He was born and raised in Trinidad and emigrated to Canada in the early 1990s, where he has received numerous awards for his writing, including the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, which honours significant contributions and achievements by Canadians.  In 2012, Maharaj received a NALIS Lifetime Literary Award as part of the commemoration of Trinidad and Tobago’s 50th independence anniversary.

About the book (from the publisher)

“Both familiar and strange, this story of a large Canadian city seen through the wide eyes of a naive and inexperienced young immigrant — wise in the culture of comic books — is both hilarious and heartbreaking. Samuel is just 17 when his mother dies and he is called to live with the father he has only heard of. He leaves his village in Trinidad and flies to Toronto, where he finds his father living in a place called Regent Park. Samuel is lonely in this ‘big mall of a country’, but he has his memories of superheroes — his mentors — to guide him, including the memory of an unusual friend, who was two superheroes in one, as he sets out to explore what Toronto has to offer.”

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About UWI

Over the last six decades, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a full-fledged University with over 40,000 students. Today, UWI is the largest and most longstanding higher education provider in the English-speaking Caribbean, with main campuses in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and Centres in Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, The Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Christopher (St Kitts) & Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent & the Grenadines. UWI recently launched its Open Campus, a virtual campus with 45 physical site locations across the region, serving 16 countries in the English-speaking Caribbean. UWI is an international university with faculty and students from over 40 countries and collaborative links with over 60 universities around the world. Through its seven Faculties, UWI offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Science & Technology, Food & Agriculture, and Social Sciences.

(Please note that the proper name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)

 

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