British author Zadie Smith headlines star-studded Vancouver Writers Fest

Renowned author Zadie Smith is on the line-up for this year's Vancouver Writers Festival among other international and Canadian big names in literature.

The Vancouver Writers Fest is an annual, week-long literary celebration that aims to highlight  the power of storytelling. This year, the festival takes place from Oct. 16-22 with over 85 events on Granville Island and venues around Vancouver. 

Smith will be headlining one of the events to discuss her latest novel, The Fraud, which is based on a real trial that took place in Victorian England. She's known for her novels White Teeth, The Autograph Man, On Beauty, NW and Swing Time; novella, The Embassy of Cambodia; collections of essays, Changing My Mind, Feel Free and Intimations; a collection of short stories, Grand Union; and the play, The Wife of Willesden, adapted from Chaucer. 

LISTEN: Zadie Smith speaks to Eleanor Wachtel about her nonfiction collection Changing My Mind: 

Writers and Company54:14Zadie Smith on writing, family and her addiction to reading

Eleanor Wachtel has spoken to the popular and critically acclaimed English writer Zadie Smith many times over the years, including in 2010 about her first non-fiction collection, Changing My Mind. It features essays about writers such as Franz Kafka, Vladimir Nabokov and George Eliot and touches on everything from the craft of writing to Smith’s love of films, as well as personal reflections about her family. *This episode originally aired on February 28, 2010.

Abdelmahmoud, host of CBC Radio's Commotion and author of Son of Elsewhere: A Memoir in Pieces, curated five events at the festival, including one featuring Canada Reads alum Cherie Dimaline. 

Georgian Bay Métis novelist Dimailine was a Canada Reads finalist in 2018 for The Marrow Thieves, a dystopian novel in a world where Indigenous people are hunted for their bone marrow. The Marrow Thieves also won both the Governor General's Literary Award for young people's literature — text and the Kirkus Prize for young readers' literature in 2017. At the festival, she'll be speaking about latest novel, VenCo, which presents a look into the lives of contemporary witches. 

• Cherie Dimaline's novel VenCo features witches and a wild road trip across America

Other Canada Reads authors include Michelle Good and Silvia Moreno-Garcia.

Good is a Cree writer, lawyer and member of Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan. She is the author of Five Little Indians, which won several awards, including Canada Reads 2022 and the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction. It follows the stories of five residential school survivors and how they cope with the past and move forward. Her latest book, Truth Telling: Seven Conversations About Indigenous Life in Canada, is a series of essays that explores the Indigenous experience. 

• Michelle Good challenges perceptions of Indigenous life in newest book

Moreno-Garcia is a Canadian writer born in Mexico known for her Gothic horror novels. Moreno-Garcia's Mexican Gothic, about a young woman in 1950s Mexico, was a finalist on Canada Reads 2023. Silver Nitrate is her most recent novel, which delves into the film industry in '90s Mexico City. 

• Canada Reads contenders Tasnim Geedi and Silvia Moreno-Garcia discuss why we should read what scares us

The Vancouver Writers Fest will host other prominent Canadian writers including Ashley Audrain, Esi Edugyan, Patrick deWitt, Rueben George, Madeleine Thien, Kevin Chong and katherena vermette, as well as debut Canadian authors Holly Hogan, Janika Oza and William Ping. 

International authors Celeste Ng, Rebecca Solnit and Aisha Harris will also make an appearance.

Tickets are available on the Vancouver Writers Fest website.