immigrantscanada.com

Independent topical source of current affairs, opinion and issues, featuring stories making news in Canada from immigrants, newcomers, minorities & ethnic communities' point of view and interests.

Rights Activist: Sir Thomas and Burmese Dissidents

rights activist: The word was coined by Sir Thomas More in 1516 as the title of a book -- it's a marriage of the Greek for ou not and topos a place . Its meaning is an ideal place that does not exist . Connelly, a human rights activist whose 11 books of poetry, fiction and creative nonfiction include three books that have explored the stories of Burmese dissidents, political prisoners and refugees, was one of four writers launching a preview of the anthology Refugees Worldwide II. The problems of the world can be overwhelming, but many people do care, proclaimed Connelly, whose life path has taken her into many places of conflict, according to Rabble. Her 2005 novel The Lizard Cage set in a solitary confinement cell in Burma captured Britain's Orange Broadband New Novelist's Prize and was shortlisted for the Kiriyama Prize in the U.S. The Toronto-based writer has travelled extensively in Asia, the Middle East and Africa, including living on the Thai-Burmese border on and off over the years. It's a fitting statement concerning the subject matter of the panel she is sitting on. I understand sometimes, it is a refuge to look away. This second edition will be published in 2019 by Ragpicker Press in English and Wagenbach Verlag in German. The anthology's first edition was launched in 2017 -- cofounded by the festival's director Ulirich Schreiber along with editor Luisa Donnerberg and translator Lucy Curzon -- as an attempt to draw away the refugee narrative from Eurocentricism. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.