BY HEIDI ULRICHSEN
Jieang Weiping?s chair at the recent Laurentian University PEN Canada reading was conspicuously empty.
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WOODSWORTH |
That?s because the Chinese journalist and poet dared to write about government corruption eight years ago. Weiping has been incarcerated at a Beijing jail ever since.
?If Jieang Weiping were here with us tonight, he would be sitting in this chair. It?s what we call the empty chair for?writers,? said Philip Adams, director of PEN Canada?s Readers and Writers in Exile Program.
PEN Canada is a branch of an international organization that campaigns on behalf of writers around the world persecuted for the expression of their
thoughts.
Writers who live in exile in Canada are also supported by the group.
The empty chair tradition was started by PEN Canada in memory of a Nigerian writer who was hanged after writing about the negative effects of oil drilling in his hometown.
Exiled writers Ameera Javeria and Goran Simic, joined by Ontario writers Giles Blunt, a noted crime fiction author formerly from North Bay, Robert Dickson, a French-language poet and Laurentian professor, and native writer Lenore Keeshig-Tobias, spoke and read at the Brenda Wallace Reading
Room last Thursday evening.
?The whole cause of freedom of expression is worth supporting,? said Laurentian president Judith Woodsworth.
Ameera Javeria is a young journalist from Pakistan who was forced to flee to the United States with her husband after receiving threats related to her work.
She now has a fellowship at the University of Michigan, where she writes about human rights and crimes against women.
?In Pakistan, crimes against women are a commonplace occurrence,? she said, reading from one of her articles. ?Eighty percent of women are abused, and every two hours a woman is raped. But the bad thing is domestic violence largely goes unreported in Pakistan.?
Javeria is in the process of writing a book about women?s rights.
Goran Simic is another writer who lives in exile. He is one of the most prominent writers of the former Yugoslavia, and came to Canada in 1995. Simic has published 11 volumes of poetry, drama and short fiction, and his work has been translated into nine languages and published in several European countries.
?I came to Canada . . . after the siege of Sarajevo. I don?t know how much you know about history, but it was a pretty tough time.
?We lived under the siege for four years without food and electricity, and I?m still alive. I live here in Toronto with my children,? said Simic.
Members of the audience seemed to appreciate seeing so many talented authors speak their minds.
?I enjoy poetry?and I like the philosophy behind PEN,? said Sheila Lacourciere. ?Freedom of expression is extremely important, and you have to
work at it constantly.?
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