DESI DIARY
ALL THE WORLD’S STORIES IN ONE PLACE
Join Kiran Desai for a conversation on her latest novel, the Booker Prize long-listed The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, October 29, 5:30 pm-6:30 pm, Isabel Bader Theatre.
This year’s Toronto International Festival of Authors (TIFA), taking place from October 29-November 2, welcomes acclaimed writers, passionate readers and book lovers from around the globe.
With the help of a transformational gift from the Weston family, TIFA is writing a new story, renewing its focus on imagination, excellence, diversity, and global conversations and connections.
This year marks a new chapter for TIFA, with a 5-day format at new venues in partnership with Victoria University at the University of Toronto.
The Festival welcomes authors from Japan, Taiwan, Korea, New Zealand, France, Germany, Portugal, Ireland, USA, Brazil and more, with many writers having roots and stories that span the globe.
PEN Canada Graeme Gibson Talk: Notes on the New America, October 28, 6 pm, Koerner Hall. Kicking off the Festival this year, the 2025 PEN Canada Graeme Gibson Talk with a special introduction by Margaret Atwood. Bringing together two eminent American writers and political thinkers, this event will features Rachel Maddow and Rebecca Solnit in conversation on the seismic changes taking place across the US political landscape. Moderated by CBC Ideas’ Nahlah Ayed.
Festival highlights include:
Kiran Desai: Love Lost & Found, October 29, 5:30 pm-6:30 pm, Isabel Bader Theatre. Join Kiran Desai for a conversation on her latest novel, the Booker Prize long-listed The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny, a spellbinding tale of lovers growing apart only to come back together again.
Claire Cameron, David Chariandy, and David A. Robertson: The Stories We Tell Ourselves, Oct 30, 6 pm-7:00 pm, Victoria College Chapel. What are the Canadian books that shape us as readers and writers? Three of Canada’s most eloquent authors, Claire Cameron, David Chariandy, and David A. Robertson interrogate and celebrate the complexities of this nation’s literatures, and explore what it takes to make a classic. Each has contributed a new introduction to the new Kanata Classics series, which is championing brilliant, timeless books, restoring many Canadian classics to our bookshelves, and inspiring a new conversation on the rich nature of Canada’s culture, history, and identity.
Samrat Upadhyay, author of Darkmotherland.
Samrat Upadhyay (Darkmotherland): Writing Masterclass, Oct 31, 2:30 pm - 4:00 pm, Victoria College, Room 101.TIFA’s Creative Writing Masterclasses offer the opportunity to learn how to craft compelling stories and bring captivating characters to life through hands-on lessons from acclaimed authors and industry experts. All writing levels are welcome.
On November 1 Upadhyay shares Darkmotherland, a gripping exploration of Nepal on the brink of civil war, where personal lives unravel against a backdrop of national turmoil alongside Ibtisam Azem in Vanishing Worlds, Fractured Homelands. Azem presents The Book of Disappearance, a haunting novel that imagines the sudden vanishing of Palestinians from Israel, opening questions of memory, erasure, and identity. 4:30 pm-5:30 pm, Emmanuel College, Room 319
Shyam Selvadurai.
Shyam Selvadurai: The Art of Detail in Speculative Fiction. Writing Masterclass. Oct 31, 5 pm - 6:30 pm, Victoria College, Room 101. A storytelling rule of thumb: the wilder and more otherworldly the setting, the more the writer has to do to make it feel real. This workshop looks at how we can bring imagined worlds to life by world-building through character and setting, so the reader feels they are truly living in a created world. Explore the work of fantasy and sci-fi masters, then work through a special writing exercise.
Madeleine Thien: Memory and Migration, Oct 31, 6-7 pm, Alumni Hall, Victoria College. Nine years after her Giller prize-winning novel, Madeleine Thien returns with her latest novel, The Book of Records, an exciting and engaging story of family and history. The novel, which was one of ten titles on Barack Obama’s 2025 summer reading list, follows a girl and her ailing father as they seek refuge at a place called “the Sea”, a mysterious building that transcends time and place. Join the author for a thought-provoking conversation on memory, migration, and family.
Kotaro Isaka: Hotel Lucky Seven, November 1 at 3:30 pm, Isabel Bader Theatre. Internationally bestselling Japanese novelist Kotaro Isaka (Bullet Train) makes his first North American appearance with his latest in the Assassins series Hotel Lucky Seven, continuing his reinvention of the crime novel with humour, philosophy, and heart-stopping twists.
Serhii Plokhy.
Serhii Plokhy: Understanding the Nuclear Age, Nov 1, 7:30 pm - 8:30 pm, Emmanuel College, Room 119. Serhii Plokhy is one of our preeminent Cold War historians, with his book Chernobyl winning the Baillie Gifford Non-Fiction Prize and subject of a hugely successful television adaptation. His new book, The Nuclear Age, is a sweeping history of the geopolitics that have defined the 20th century. He examines how the global arms race, from Ukraine to China, India to Pakistan, is making politics in the 21st century dangerously unpredictable. An essential event to understand how the world is being shaped, and where Canada stands in the world.
Fatma Ayedimir and Jonas Hassen Khemiri: Tea, Cake and Family Sagas. Nov 1, 11 am - 12:00 pm, Alumni Hall, Victoria College. Grab a slice of cake, a cup of tea, and step into a dialogue between two powerful contemporary voices, exploring cultural inheritance and the universal search for meaning and connection. Fatma Aydemir and Jonas Hassen Khemiri will look deeply at family dynamics, generational memory, and the ties that bind us across time and place. In Djinns, Aydemir explores how long-buried family secrets and the experience of migration shape the lives of one Turkish-German family. Khemiri’s The Sisters follows the Mikkola sisters through decades of love, betrayal, and self-discovery, tracing how siblings grow together and apart. A reminder that the stories we inherit – and those we create – are what keep us connected.
Shani Mootoo.
Alka Joshi: Six Days in Bombay, Nov 1, 12:30 pm-1:30 pm, Emmanuel College, Room 119. From the New York Times bestselling author of The Henna Artist, Alka Joshi’s latest sweeping novel of identity and self-discovery, Six Days In Bombay. At its heart is Sona, a young woman captivated by the artist Mira Novak, whose untimely death casts the shadow of suspicion over Sona. But Mira has bequeathed clues to her past and a puzzle for Sona to solve that will allow her to clear her name and understand her true self.
Joshi will also present a Creative Writing Masterclass on November 2, 11:30 am - 1 pm at Victoria College, Room 101.
Andrew Coyne: Elbows Up for Canadian Democracy. Nov 2, 11:30 am - 12:30 pm, Victoria College Chapel. As a columnist for the Globe & Mail, Andrew Coyne is one of Canada’s most esteemed political thinkers, and is perfectly positioned to offer insight into the threats facing Canada’s identity and sovereignty in 2025. In The Crisis of Canadian Democracy, he offers a powerful examination of the nation’s democratic institutions, the pillars that define and defend who we are as a nation. With characteristic wit, insight, and rigour, Coyne dismantles some of the comforting myths to offer a wake-up call and a call to action, offering compelling solutions to revitalize Canadian politics.
Adam Haslett & Shani Moo-too: Bound & Unbound, Nov 2, 12:30 pm-1:30 pm, Alumni Hall, Victoria College. Pulitzer-prize finalist Adam Haslett and four-time Giller Prize nominee Shani Mootoo discuss the power of storytelling to confront memory, reshape identity, and test the familial bonds that define who we are. In his latest novel, Mothers and Sons, Haslett follows Peter, a solitary immigration lawyer, and his estranged mother as a young asylum case forces them to revisit the traumatic secret that divided them. Mootoo’s innovative work of auto-fiction, Starry Starry Night, tenderly chronicles young Anju’s coming-of-age in 1960s Trinidad amid family tensions and colonial change.
With over 100 events ranging from conversations, masterclasses, talks, and readings – there is so much to see and do!
For more info on events and participating authors, and for tickets and festival passes, visit festivalofauthors.ca.