The 36th annual JCC Jewish Book Festival announces 2021 lineup
Local writers join authors from across Canada, the US, Israel, Great Britain, and Chile for dynamic literary fest
Dana Camil Hewitt, festival director of the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival, says “arts and stories are more relevant than ever”.
There’s great news for lovers of literature: the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival is coming up, taking place February 20 to 25.
Authors from around the world will participate in virtual events, while organizers are hoping to be able to offer limited-capacity in-person gatherings with local writers, depending on the most up-to-date guidance of the health authorities. With a special Prologue event with Yosef Wosk on February 11, people’s safety is the long-standing fest’s highest priority.
Inspired by the idea of “Together But Apart”, which pervades our current lives, the festival will bring forth themes of family and connections and stories born of quests and questions. The times may be uncertain, but community is not.
“The Jewish Book Festival strives to spark meaningful and captivating conversations about the written word in every shape and form,” says festival director Dana Camil Hewitt. “Arts and stories are more relevant than ever, and to us, writers are most essential workers. We strive to support them and re-create the joyful experience of a shared literary event. And while the nucleus of our festival is Jewish-themed, our speakers, events and audience all defy narrow categorization: we provide an interactive forum and showcase for recent publications that revel in the lively and pivotal ideas stemming from the modern world and current reality. We are attuned to timely and universal themes and we thrive on the interdisciplinary, inviting music, photography and performance art into our events”.
Among the featured authors for the 2021 festival are Eshkol Nevo, one of Israel's most successful living writers who headlines opening night. Nevo’s novel The Last Interview is a literary and psychological page-turner. On closing night, actress Tovah Feldshuh appears. Her heartwarming and funny memoir, Lilyville, is a mother-daughter story that reflects America's cultural changes and the world's shifting expectations of women. In keeping with an overarching Mothers & Daughters theme, bestselling author Myla Goldberg shares from her latest novel, Feast Your Eyes, a daringly inventive parable of female creativity and motherhood, while Ilana Masad will counter with her debut novel, All My Mother's Lovers, a tender and biting portrait of sex, gender, and identity that challenges us to acknowledge how difficult it is to know our parents.
The festival’s annual Book Clubs event will feature Anna Solomon, author of The Book of V. British novelist Norman Lebrecht discusses his latest book, Genius and Anxiety: How Jews Changed the World, 1847-1947.
Other participating writers include Carla Guelfenbein, Myriam Steinberg, Naomi Pommier Steinberg, Seth Klein, and Bonnie Sherr Klein.
Yosef Wosk, a 2020 Order of Canada recipient, will launch Memories of Jewish Poland: The 1932 Photographs of Nachum Tim Gidal in a pre-fest event on February 11 in the JCC’s Zack Gallery.
Most events are pay-what-you-can; a gold pass for all events is $90.
Tickets and updates can be found at www.jccgv.com/jewish-book-festival
This post was sponsored by the Cherie Smith JCC Jewish Book Festival.