The Department of English and the Office of the Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences are delighted to announce that Dionne Brand will deliver the 2017 Pratt Lecture.
The lecture will take place on Wednesday, March 15, at 8 p.m. in the LSPU Hall in St. John’s.
Dionne Brand’s works of poetry include Ossuaries, Land to Light On, Inventory, and No Language is Neutral.
Her novels include Love Enough, At the Full and Change of the Moon, and What We All Long For. Her non-fiction includes Bread out of Stone and A Map to the Door of No Return.
Her books have won the Griffin Poetry Prize, the Trillium Book Prize and the Pat Lowther Award, and have been nominated three times for the Governor General’s Literary Award. She is a professor in the School of English and Theatre Studies at the University of Guelph.
Anti-black violence
Ms. Brand has given her lecture the evocative title, A Hidden Verb Takes Inventory.
“Dionne Brand has an uncanny gift of expression and a great seriousness of moral and political purpose.”
Dr. Andrew Loman, Pratt Lecture committee member and a professor of English at Memorial, has been a fan of Dionne Brand’s work since reading A Map to the Door of No Return over a decade ago.
“One of Canada’s great writers, Dionne Brand has an uncanny gift of expression and a great seriousness of moral and political purpose,” said Dr. Loman.
“I know that her lecture will be heart-wrenching and brilliant and it will be a privilege to host her.”
Everyone invited
The Pratt Lecture is free and open to all. There will be a reception following the event, with a cash bar.
Named in honour of the Newfoundland-born poet E. J. Pratt, the Pratt Lecture is the oldest public lecture at Memorial University. Past lecturers include Northrop Frye, Terry Eagleton, Ursula LeGuin, Alberto Manguel, and Anne Carson.
