2021 Hugh MacLennan Lecture: Navigating Identity Through Storytelling

The virtual event features Danny Ramadan, the Syrian-Canadian author of The Clothesline Swing (2017), Salma, the Syrian Chef (2020), and The Foghorn Echoes (2022). Danny Ramadan is also an LGBTQ+ Refugee advocate whose work focuses on immigration, identity, and belonging.

The lecture will be moderated by author, actor and playwright, Ann-Marie MacDonald. Submit questions in advance to [info.library [at] mcgill.ca].

Watch the lecture live on YouTube here: https://youtu.be/J4upcNeUhyI.

Danny Ramadan is a Syrian-Canadian author and LGBTQ-refugees advocate. His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, won the Independent Publisher Book Award, The Canadian Authors Association’s award, and was shortlisted for a Lambda Award, and longlisted for Canada Reads. The novel is translated into French, German and Hebrew.

His children’s book, Salma the Syrian Chef is nominated to the Forest of Reading’s Blue Spruce Award and named amongst the Best Books of 2020 by Kirkus Reviews and Library School Journal. It won the Middle East Book Award in 2020.

His forthcoming novel, The Foghorn Echoes, to be released by Penguin Canada and Canongate UK in 2022.

Danny graduated from UBC with an MFA in Creative Writing and lives in Vancouver with his husband, Matthew Ramadan.

Presented by the Friends of the McGill Library in partnership with Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival.

Generously supported by Donald Walcot.

Works by Danny Ramadan will be available for purchase at Paragraphe Books.