Drawn from the dark: How shocking B.C. killings spurred by new novel written thousands of miles away
Canada doesn't often serve as a foreign writer's muse; indeed, even Canadian writers often look elsewhere for inspiration. Yet author Vijay Khurana, an Australian based of late in Berlin and London, was drawn — from thousands of kilometres away — to news of a bloody tragedy in British Columbia. That led to 'The Passenger Seat,' his debut novel published in March, about two young men on a car trip and the increasingly shocking, violent choices they make. The book has been hailed by critics and anointed as a New York Times Editors' Choice. Here, Khurana explains what attracted him to the real-life crimes of Canada's Bryer Schmegelsky and Kam McLeod, and how his own past, surrealism and video cameras entered the mix.
In the summer of 2016, I was on holiday in France and found myself by a river, watching a group of boys jump from a high rock into the water below. The river was shallow, alarmingly so. It reached no further than the knees of most of the other bathers. The rest of us looked on with a mixture of fascination and alarm as the local teenagers, shouting and laughing, jumped from a height of several metres. Even though the boys must have known that the river below the rock was deeper than elsewhere, it still seemed like utter stupidity.
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A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder. The next issue of Sunrise will soon be in your inbox. Please try again Interested in more newsletters? Browse here. Hamas's infiltration of Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — during which 1,195 people were killed and 251 more were taken hostage — and the Israeli military's response have led to a wave of antisemitic attacks in Western countries, including Canada. And while there haven't been any hate crimes resulting in the deaths of Jewish people in Canada, there has been a marked increase in other offences in the 19 months since hostilities began with the terrorist group in Gaza. In 2023, of the 1,284 hate crimes targeting a religion — a jump of 67 per cent from 2022 — 900 were against Jewish people, that's over 70 per cent of all hate crimes and a 71 per cent increase over the previous year, according to Statistics Canada police-reported hate crime data. 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Edmonton Journal
7 hours ago
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Article content In the wake of another antisemitic attack in the U.S., organizations representing the Canadian Jewish community condemned the incident and renewed their call for governments to take concrete steps to prevent more like it. On Sunday in Boulder, Col., eight people were injured, some with serious burns, when 45-year-old Mohamed Sabry Soliman allegedly used Molotov cocktails and an improvised flamethrower on a small group of people assembled to raise attention for the remaining 58 Israeli hostages in Gaza. He reportedly yelled 'Free Palestine' as he did so. Soliman has since been charged with federal hate crime and other charges, and the FBI is investigating it as an act of terrorism. Abraham Global Peace Initiative CEO and founder Avi Benlolo said he was saddened by the incident, but 'not surprised.' It's the byproduct, he said, of demonstrators becoming 'much more hostile, much more desperate' in an effort to seek attention. And he thinks it's only going to escalate. 'I think we're going to see more Colorados,' he told National Post Monday. In a post to X, B'nai Brith Canada called it 'a cowardly act of hate filled violence' and suggested this and other recent antisemitic attacks 'are emblematic of what happens when radical extremism is allowed to flourish and when hatred is incited without consequence.'
