An Update to TPM’s Book Club
Thank you very much for all your enthusiasm for this new initiative! Before we get started with our first book club date on November 11, we want to let you know that we have decided to replace Blindness by José Sarmago with another title.
We chose the book in haste and without enough care, and in doing so caused distress. We were alerted to the problematic elements of the novel by our artists, so we also want to acknowledge their labour for taking the time to engage with us in this discussion. We fully acknowledge that we, as TPM, must take responsibility for taking as much care in our outreach events as with our programming and in this instance we failed to do so.
Ultimately, we found both the book’s representation of blindness used as a metaphor and the lack of authentic authorship problematic. As a replacement, we have chosen the memoir, Cockeyed by Ryan Knighton about his irreverent and tragicomic journey of going blind, and growing up. We made this choice in consultation with our artists, as well as the Secretary of the TPM Board of Directors Darren Cooper (who identifies as a person living with blindness.) We hope that you will join us for a discussion of it on the same scheduled date, December 16, 2020
We are also pleased to welcome Darren Cooper as the moderator that evening, bringing his lived experience to the discussion.
We welcome any questions regarding this change. Please feel free to reach out to Artistic Director, Marjorie Chan at marjoriec@passemurialle.on.ca. And as well, on December 16, we will open our Zoom room at 6:30 – 7pm for those who would like to discuss this decision with us, followed by the discussion about Cockeyed.
We look forward to connecting with you over this and other books this season!