Zoe Heller, Kamila Shamsie and Ha Jin (part 1)

The Ottawa International Writers Festival: May 11, 2009
A conversation on identity, language and place
with Ha Jin, Kamila Shamsie and Zoë Heller

Ha Jin left his native China in 1985. He is the winner of the National Book Award, the PEN/Hemingway Award, two PEN/Faulkner Awards and three Pushcart Prizes. His most recent novel, A Free Life, his first set in the United States, follows the Wu family — father Nan, mother Pingping, and son Taotao — as they sever their ties with China in the aftermath of the 1989 massacre at Tiananmen Square and begin a new life in the United States.

Kamila Shamsie is the Karachi-born author of five novels, including Kartography and her most recent, Burnt Shadows. She has written for various publications including The Guardian, TLS, The Telegraph (UK), DAWN and Newsline (Pakistan), The Daily Star (Bangladesh) and the New York Times, and is on the editorial board of the Index on Censorship. She now lives in London.

Zoë Heller, author of Notes on a Scandal and Everything You Know, whose most recent novel The Believers is a comic, tragic tale about one familys struggles with the consolations of faith and the trials of doubt.

• Category

  Entertainment