The founder of Blue Metropolis wants to speak your language
by Ginger Jacobs
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Linda Leith
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The crowd gathers at Blue Metropolis
Photos courtesy of Blue Metropolis |
The Blue Metropolis literary festival is coming up on its ninth season this month, with a smorgasbord of writers descending on Montreal - including one very special honouree. Its founder Linda Leith describes the festival as "a five-day party and a literary blast." She sat down with us at her Montreal office.
Montréal Magazine: What prompted you to start the festival?
Linda Leith: I worked on a different event in 1996 with (Quebec writers) Ann Charney and Mary Soderstrom called Write Pour Écrire. That was the first event that brought French and English writers together in a big setting. At the time it was really controversial; we couldn't even call it a bilingual event. But it sold out, and it created the sense that there was a need for this kind of bridge-building literary event. That became the Blue Metropolis Foundation. And it has developed thanks to a lot of people. It's not just me.
MM: One of the main features of the festival is its multilingual focus.
Leith: We're the first in the world to be a multilingual literary festival. The first festival in April 1999 was in French and English. Every year we added languages; Spanish, Russian, Farsi, Inuktitut, Dutch?Montreal is the perfect city to do that. You have a public that speaks two languages, often more. That allows us to bring people from different cultures under the same roof to talk about what matters, because that's what books are. These days there is such a concentration in publishing and the media that we only hear about a few bestselling writers. There are writers in The Netherlands or the Canadian North that you and I would not normally read. The festival can open those doors, and open the possibilities of what writing can do. I think it's because Montreal is a city in which language is such a hot button issue that it's so important. It's a city of languages.
MM: In your imagination, what does the Blue Metropolis look like?
Leith: It's a utopian name. It's a city of the imagination, that's just over the horizon, in which all these people from different backgrounds and languages can talk and communicate.
MM: This year's winner of your Grand Prix award is Margaret Atwood. With all due respect to Ms. Atwood, isn't it a bit redundant to give her a Canadian literary award?
Leith: She is the grand dame of Canadian literature. They are reading her in an industrial city in the northwest of China; they are reading her in eastern Hungary; everywhere. This is the 8th year that we have been giving the award. We've given it to three Quebec writers - Marie-Claire Blais, Mavis Gallant, and Michel Tremblay - but we've never given the prize to a Canadian writer from outside Quebec. It was high time. The person most associated with the growth and success of Canadian Literature is Margaret Atwood. It's an absolute natural for her to be invited.
Our mission is to bring people from different cultures together
to share the pleasures of reading and writing.
MM: Is there a characteristic that your honourees all share?
Leith: They are all truly international figures, who cross boundaries. You can have very good writers who are very local figures, within their context. Ours is a broader view. Blue Metropolis is open to the world.
MM: How did the foundation's educational programs come into being?
Leith: They've developed together with the festival. Our mission is to bring people from different cultures together to share the pleasures of reading and writing. That's not just a question of the Margaret Atwoods and the Carlos Fuenteses and the Norman Mailers; it's a question of grassroots work, and helping people to be inspired to read and write. We do creative writing workshops. We do literacy programs to help immigrants become integrated, interested in this society and part of it. It isn't something reserved for the gods who are writers. At some level, we are all a part of this - children, adults - we're trying to break down the distinction between high literature and people on the street. We make it inclusive. The festival mostly features writers who have been published, but there are a few who have just published or self-published their first book. You will meet people you have never heard before.
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Ginger Jacobs is the nom de plume of a freelance writer living in Montreal.
Kind of Blue
The 9th Blue Metropolis Montreal International Literary Festival
April 25-29, 2007
Delta Centre-Ville Hotel
777, rue University
For more information, visit http://www.bluemetropolis.org/ |
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