Portfolio Reading Series

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Thursday, October 24th, 2019
7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

Join Portfolio Reading Series' monthly literary gathering featuring Arianna Dagnino and her new book "The Afrikaner". Arianna will be reading from her book and speaking to creative inspiration and her writing journey.

About "The Afrikaner": Zoe Du Plessis's story unfolds against the backdrop of 1996 South Africa, caught in the turmoil of the transition from the Apartheid regime to the first democratically elected black government. A paleoanthropologist her world collapses when her lover and colleague, Dario Oldani, is killed during a fatal carjacking. Clinging to her late companion's memory, Zoe sets off to the merciless Kalahari Desert to continue his fieldwork. It's the beginning of an inner journey during which Zoe comes to terms with her sense of guilt as a privileged white Afrikaner while also confronting a secret that has hung over her family for generations.

Arianna Dagnino’s cultural and professional experience crosses many borders and four continents. Born in Genoa, Italy, she studied in London, Moscow and Boston before entering journalism and international reporting, which led her to spend several years in Southern Africa and Australia. She currently lectures in Italian Studies and conducts research in the fields of Transcultural Studies and Translation Studies at the University of British Columbia after earning a PhD in Comparative Literature at the University of South Australia and a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Ottawa/School of Translation. She has published books – both in Italian and English – of fiction and creative nonfiction, as well as essays on digital technologies, global mobility and transcultural flows.