Algoma Reads features exciting new author

Algoma Reads is featuring author Francesca Ekwuyasi who was on the Giller Prize longlist and on the shortlist for the 2021 Governor General’s Award. Her first novel, Butter Honey Pig Bread, went all the way through to the final day of CBC’s Canada Reads. The full text of the press release follows:

Francesca Ekwuyasi is a writer and multidisciplinary artist from Lagos, Nigeria. Her first novel, 'Butter Honey Pig Bread', launched her onto the Canadian literary scene, gaining a place on the Giller Prize longlist and on the shortlist for the 2021 Governor General’s Award and the 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. It also went all the way through to the final day of CBC’s Canada Reads.

'Butter Honey Pig Bread' is an intergenerational tale of trauma and loss. The three central female characters – twin sisters, Kehinde and Taiye, and their mother Kambirinachi – reunite in Lagos over lusciously described food to confront and reconnect with each other after over a decade apart. 

Algoma Reads invites you to come and enjoy our conversation with Francesca Ekwuyasi at 4 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 16. Please email Algoma.Reads@algomau.ca to register and receive the link to the virtual event. The event is free and open to the public.

Algoma Reads will conclude this season with a virtual visit from the CBC Canada Reads 2021 winning author, Joshua Whitehead on Dec. 7. Whitehead is a Two-Spirit, Oji-nêhiyaw member of Peguis First Nation (Treaty 1) and the first Indigenous author to win CBC’s Canada Reads with his novel, 'Jonny Appleseed'.