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MFA Book Launch
April 14, 2022 at 7:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Join UBCO’s Creative Writing program as we celebrate the launch of two new works by MFA students, Brianna Ferguson and Umar Turaki.
Brianna Ferguson’s A Nihilist Walks Into A Bar is the frustrated, fierce, and funny first book of a woman for whom all the old expectations of life have fallen apart. Railing against careers, religion, sex, drinking, and all the usual signposts on the road to self fulfillment, Ferguson strips away the facade of old ideas and laughs and cries at the chaos that lies beneath. This book is a manifesto of the disenfranchised, and the diary of a country girl with her head in the clouds. It is a love letter to the world, and a break-up text at 3 am. To anyone who’s ever looked out the window and thought “yes, but why?”, this book is for you.
Umar Turaki’s Such a Beautiful Thing to Behold is a mysterious plague known as the Grey grips the small village of Pilam, which the world has quarantined without pity. Laying waste to Pilam’s residents, the sickness saps its victims of strength, drains the color from their eyes, and kills all promise. Only the young are immune. But beyond the barricades and walls of soldiers―the manifestation of a nation’s terror―there are rumors of a cure. Dunka, the eldest son of a family reeling from the Grey, takes on the daunting task of leaving Pilam to find that cure for his siblings and save them before it’s too late. His brother and sisters, however, have plans of their own. Navigating the chaos of violence, hunger, and death, each of them tries to make sense of the bleak circumstances, forging new bonds with other juvenile survivors left to their own devices. Now an unlikely family of six, they choose their own perilous paths, at first separately and then together, coming to terms with the decisions they make and the ghosts they cannot leave behind. Umar Turaki’s gripping novel is a story of survival, love, and the human spirit’s tenacious capacity for wonder.
The event will be held at the Alternator Gallery, and will feature readings from both authors and a Q&A session.
