Celebrated poet to read at Glendon

close up of Dionne Brand

Dionne Brand, a celebrated poet, novelist and non-fiction writer both nationally and internationally, will speak at Glendon at part of the Ondaatje Reading Series.

Brand will read from her work Monday, Jan. 30, at 4:30pm in the Senior Common Room, Glendon campus.

Dionne Brand head shotShe is the author of some 18 books and has made four National Film Board documentaries. Her fiction includes What We All Long For, At the Full and Change of the Moon and In Another Place, Not Here (1996). She is also the author of several non-fiction works, including Bread Out of Stone and A Map to the Door of No Return, as well as poetry. Her 2002 collection, Thirsty, won the Pat Lowther Award for poetry.

Right: Dionne Brand

In 1997, she received the Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry for Land to Light On and was nominated for No Language is Neutral and Inventory. She has also taken home the Trillium Award, the City of Toronto Book Award, the Harbourfront Festival Award and, just last year, the Griffin Poetry Prize. In 2009, she was the poet laureate for the city of Toronto.

Her poetry has been hailed as innovative, lyrical and often politically informed and her readings spellbinding. Currently, she teaches in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph. She also garnered considerable respect for her political essays on race, sexual orientation and social inequalities.