EPISODE · Apr 30, 2020 · 43 MIN
Austin Clarke: Doing Right
from Writers Off the Page: From the TIFA Archives · host Toronto Public Library
Note: given the current temporary closure of TPL due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we have made our best efforts to offer suggestions below for materials which are part our online collections (indicated) and available at home to anyone with a current Toronto Library card. Read: Why are wait times on ebooks or audiobooks sometimes so long?__Works by Austin ClarkeNine Men Who Laughed‘Membering (ebook)The Origin of Waves: a Novel (ebook)Choosing His Coffin: the Best Stories of Austin Clarke (ebook)Where the Sun Shines Best (ebook)The Polished Hoe (audiobook)Love and Sweet Food: a Culinary MemoirOther Related Books or MaterialsAustin Clarke: Essays on his Work by Camille IsaacsThe Passions of Austin Clarke by Donna Bailey Nurse (link opens an article from The Walrus from Jun 2016)Remembering Author Austin Clarke by Andrea Baillie (ink opens McLean’s article from Jun 2016)Austin Clarke: a Frank and Thoughtful Critic (link opens CBC Archives interview from 1963)Austin Clarke (link opens a 1969 photo by Boris Sprimo from TPL’s Special Collections of the Toronto Star Archives; all of Clarke’s images from the Toronto Star Archives can be found here)About the HostNovelist Randy Boyagoda is a professor of English at the University of Toronto and principal of St. Michael’s College, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters. He is the author of three novels: Original Prin, Beggar's Feast, and Governor of the Northern Province. His fiction has been nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize (2006) and IMPAC Dublin Literary Prize (2012), and named a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice Selection (2012 and 2019) and Globe and Mail Best Book (2018). He contributes essays, reviews, and opinions to publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, First Things, Commonweal, Harper’s, Financial Times (UK), Guardian, New Statesman, Globe and Mail, and National Post, in addition to appearing frequently on CBC Radio. He served as President of PEN Canada from 2015-2017.Music is by Yuka From the ArchivesWriters Off the Page: 40 Years of TIFA is the first series associated with the Toronto Public Library’s multi-year digital initiative, From the Archives, which presents curated and digitized audio, video and other content from some of Canada’s biggest cultural institutions and organizations.Thanks to the Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA) for allowing TPL access to their archives to feature some of the best-known writers in the world from moments in the past. Thanks as well to Library and Archives Canada for generously allowing TPL access to these archives.
What this episode covers
When he appeared for this recording on a stage in 1985 at Harbourfront, Austin Clarke was already a well-known writer in Toronto, having published seven novels, three story collections, and a best-selling memoir, in addition to his work as a freelance journalist for the CBC and the dated, clichéd, “angriest Black man in Canada” label that critics used to characterize his activism. This story, “Doing Right” (from his 1986 collection, Nine Men Who Laughed) shows Clarke’s humour and light-heartedness, bringing the signature cadence and rhythms of his West Indian-inflected English to the voice and characters that inhabit this Toronto. Clarke shows how some members of a community respond as a “Wessindian” migrant tries his best to do what he feels is the right thing. Through the lens of time and place, we’re offered a glimpse of how stories of newcomers were pivotal in transforming “Toronto the Good,” from the staid and quiet collection of villages whose sidewalks rolled up at 6pm, to the colourful, vibrant and cosmopolitan city of today.
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Austin Clarke: Doing Right
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