Black Ink

Seeking a calm location for this interview, Donna Bailey Nurse and Lawrence Hill (bios below) infiltrated the CBC building in downtown Toronto to chat about Hill's new novel, The Book of Negroes. Despite large sheets of ice swooping down off the CN Tower, they remained undaunted and, with stealth and determination, located a quiet room in which to talk about Larry's childhood in Don Mills with a black father and a white mother, his experiences overseas, and how this informed both his new novel, The Book of Negroes, and his new non-fiction title, The Deserter's Tale. Listen here; we are sure you will not be disappointed.

Lawrence Hill Interview
(43:39) (10.2mb)
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Lawrence Hill is the author of the novels Some Great Thing and Any Known Blood, and the non-fiction books Seeking Salvation: A History of the Black Church in Canada, Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada. He is interviewed here on the topic of his already acclaimed new novel The Book of Negroes and his new non-fiction book The Deserter's Tale: The Story of an Ordinary Soldier Who Walked Away From the War in Iraq, which he wrote together with the subject of the book, Joshua Key.

Donna Bailey Nurse is a notable literary journalist who writes for The Globe and Mail, The Toronto Star and The Montreal Gazette. She is a critic for CBC radio with two books to her credit: What's a Black Critic To Do and Revival: An Anthology of Black Canadian Writing.