Latest news with #Hotel10
Montreal Gazette
27-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Montreal Gazette
Nationalism can be a positive or negative force, Salman Rushdie says
By In the Hotel 10 basement on Sherbrooke St., security guards inspected a procession of writers, editors and literature lovers as they arrived at a literary roundtable discussion. The security was high because this wasn't just any literary event. One of the panellists, author Salman Rushdie, was attacked with a knife in 2022 as he was about to give a public lecture in New York, leaving him blind in one eye. 'Two and a half years ago was a bad audience,' the 77-year-old author joked at his talk on Saturday afternoon, while wearing his signature glasses with a black-tinted right lens. The Indian-born author was the object of multiple death threats and assassination attempts after the publication of his famous 1988 novel The Satanic Verses. His most recent autobiographical work from 2024, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder, recounts the stabbing attack. Rushdie's upcoming novella collection, The Eleventh Hour, is scheduled to be published this fall. Rushdie was in Montreal for the Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival, where he was awarded the Grand Prix Award for a lifetime of literary achievement and interviewed by longtime CBC Radio host Eleanor Wachtel. The Blue Metropolis Grand Prix is given each year to a world-renowned author, accompanied by a $10,000 grant. Earlier in the day, Rushdie gave a talk with historian Simon Sebag Montefiore around themes of history, dreams and imagination. At the talk, Rushdie discussed his complicated feelings toward growing Canadian nationalism, which has spiked in reaction to annexation threats from the United States. '(It's a) very odd word, 'nationalism,' because there are contexts in which it's been a very positive force. For example, the growth of the nationalist movement in India is what ended up getting rid of the British Empire, and I can see that as a kind of almost entirely positive thing,' he said. 'But there are other parts of the world where nationalism has become associated with more primitive kinds of right-wing politics. So it's mixed. It's a word that you have to be careful about.' Rushdie also spoke about how history offers lessons on staying optimistic, even during challenging times. 'One of the things that the study of history taught me was that there's nothing inevitable about history. You know, history doesn't run on tram lines, and enormous changes are possible at very short notice,' he said. 'In all these changes at short notice ... I think that doesn't necessarily mean things get better, they can get worse. But at least it means that change is constant.' While Rushdie has long explored the lessons of history in his work, he noted that the broader public often fails to do the same. 'To take only recent history, the second election of Donald Trump. If you have the example of the first presidency of Donald Trump, then you should learn from that. But instead, everybody learned the wrong lesson. And now you get all these statements in the press of kind of buyer's remorse, people who voted for Trump regretting it.' The Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival runs until 6 p.m. on Sunday, and will hold both in-person panels at the Hotel 10 as well as online programming.
Montreal Gazette
25-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Montreal Gazette
Friday on My Mind: Blue Metropolis, a Strokes cover band, Mean Girls top cool agenda
Friday on My Mind is a highly subjective, curated rundown of five of the cooler things happening in Montreal on the weekend. Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival Friday to Sunday at Hotel 10. There are many intriguing authors to check out at this year's Blue Metropolis, but arguably the hottest ticket is Salman Rushdie. The Indian-born author — best-known for his 1988 novel The Satanic Verses — will be given the Blue Met's 2025 Grand Prix on Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Hotel 10 and at the event he will interviewed by longtime CBC Radio host Eleanor Wachtel. 'He's a great author and the goal of the festival has always to bring together writers with different points of view,' said Blue Met director of programming Marie-Andrée Lamontagne. 'Salman Rushdie has become an icon of freedom of expression because of some tragic circumstances. He's also just published a remarkable book, which is why we want to give him the Grand Prix. He receives it for his work but also as someone who represents freedom of expression and freedom of the imagination. These things are particularly important in the era we're living in right now.' Rushdie was the object of several assassination attempts and many death threats after the publication of The Satantic Verses and he survived a stabbing in New York in 2022 that resulted in the loss of his left eye. Last year he published an autobiographical book inspired by that vicious attack, Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder. Other authors set to take part in the literary festival include British historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, German author Peter Wohlleben, and American novelist Stephen Graham Jones. Wachtel will also interview Montreal author Madeleine Thien, whose latest novel The Book of Records comes out May 6. Lamontagne underlines that the fest continues the mission of founder Linda Leith to try to bring the city's anglo and franco literary communities together. 'This is important for me personally and for Blue Metropolis,' said Lamontagne. 'There is programming in English and programming in French. I also like to program bilingual events whenever possible with bilingual hosts. Language should never be an obstacle. Blue Metropolis is all about the circulation of languages.' Tickets and info: Gala Dynastie This is the ninth edition of the annual gala that rewards artists, creators and personalities from Black communities in the province. This year's ceremony is hosted by comedian Garihanna Jean-Louis. The evening will also include a tribute to Quebec comic Anthony Kavannagh. Tickets: View this post on Instagram A post shared by The Brokes (@ The Brokes Saturday at 8:30 p.m. at Fairmount Theatre. All you need to know to sell you on this one is the band's Instagram tag line: 'Too broke to Stroke? Try ... The Brokes.' The Brokes are a Strokes cover band from Toronto (of all places, just seems like the least Strokes-like city!) who pay tribute to the legendary too-cool Manhattan garage band from the early aughts. In a New York Times piece on them last year, one fan said: 'Being here feels like being at a Strokes nerd fest. The Brokes play deep cuts, songs the Strokes would never play live at some big stadium today.' 'Nuff said. Strokes nerds are thus alerted! Tickets: South Asian Film Festival Friday to Sunday at the DeSève Cinema in Concordia's Webster Library Building. Don't tell Donald Trump. This week's film fest — yes there is apparently one every single week of the year — proclaims in its press materials that 'Diversity, equity, inclusion and cinematographic merit' power its programming choices! Shocking, I know. Kidding aside, it's another popular film festival that provides a welcome alternative to the Hollywood shlock at the nearby multiplex. Shambhala, for example, the opening-night film, is set in a Himalayan village in Nepal and tells the story of a pregnant woman who heads out on a quest to find her husband who has gone missing. Mean Girls Friday to Sunday at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier of Place des Arts. This is the first time in Montreal you get to see a touring version of the hit critically acclaimed Broadway musical based on the Hollywood flick of the same name penned by Saturday Night Live's Tina Fey. There's undoubtedly an audience for this but me I'm not a musicals kind of guy and I didn't become any more enthused when I read the last line of The Guardian's review of the original Broadway production: 'Here's the best/worst thing you can say about Mean Girls: it's nice.'
