Readings from Writers of the Diaspora at U of T

January 19, 2006, 7:00 p.m.—9:00 p.m.
East Common Room, Hart House, University of Toronto
7 Hart House Circle
Fiction by Rabindranath Maharaj and Judy Fong Bates
Spoken Word by lisa “luscious” tai

Additionally, an open call distributed across the University of Toronto campus in December has found four promising new voices. The quality of the submissions were so high the jury had too difficult a time picking only one poet and one short story writer to participate—so they chose two of each!

Marlene Goldman teaches English Literature and is the Scarborough campus representative in the Diaspora Studies Program. She will read from her first collection of poetry, just recently completed and under submission to publishers. For students Parmïs Mirabdolbaghi and Fan Li, submitting their work was a brand new experience. Mirabdolbaghi will be reading poetry, and Li will be reading from the short story he created for the open call. Sima Saharah Zerehi, a student, part-time newspaper editor and community activist, will read the short story she submitted. As a first generation immigrant from Iran who came to Canada as a refugee in her early teens, she believes her work “reflects one of the many young diverse voices in Toronto’s ever growing multicultural cityscape.”