Anakana Schofield

Anakana Schofield

Anakana Schofield is the author of the acclaimed, Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlisted novel Martin John, which was also a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, the Goldsmiths Prize in the U.K., a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and was named a best book of the year by The Wall Street Journal, The Globe and Mail, National Post, Sunday Business Post, Toronto Star, and The Irish Times, among others. Her debut novel Malarky won the Amazon.ca First Novel Award, the 2013 Debut-Litzer Prize for Fiction in the U.S., and was a finalist for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Schofield’s writing and reviews have appeared in The Guardian, The Irish Times, The Globe and Mail, National Post, London Review of Books blog, and The Long Gaze Back: An Anthology of Irish Women Writers, among others. She lives in Vancouver.

Website: anakanaschofield.com/
Twitter: @AnakanaSchofiel

Anakana Schofield’s Bina is a fiction of the rarest and darkest kind, a work whose pleasures must be taken measure for measure with its pains. Schofield’s sense of injustice is unblinking and without illusion, yet her writing is so vivacious, so full of interest and lust for life: she is the most compassionate of storytellers, wearing the guise of the blackest comedian.” Rachel Cusk

FESTIVAL BOOK

Bina

“My name is Bina and I’m a very busy woman. That’s Bye-na, not Beena. I don’t know who Beena is but I expect she’s having a happy life. I don’t know who you are, or the state of your life. But if you’ve come this way to listen to me, your life will undoubtedly get worse. I’m here to warn you.”

So begins this “novel in warnings” – an unforgettable tour de force in the voice of an ordinary-extraordinary woman who has simply had enough. Through the character of Bina, who is writing out her story on the backs of discarded envelopes, Anakana Schofield filters a complex moral universe filled with humour and sadness, love and rage, and the consolations, obligations, and mysteries of lifelong friendship.

DIVE DEEPER

Reviews

  • “Bina: A Novel in Warnings, a book you must read but can’t” — The Irish Times

Interviews

  • “Anakana Schofield on friendship, assisted death and the contradictions of being human” — CBC.ca

Articles

ALL EVENTS WITH Anakana Schofield

9 PM
Literary Death Match
Oct 16 @ 9 PM MT - 11 PM MT

Patricia A. Whelan Performance Hall, Central Library

800 3 Street SE
6:30 PM
Canadiana Showcase
Oct 17 @ 6:30 PM MT - 8 PM MT

Patricia A. Whelan Performance Hall, Central Library

800 3 Street SE