David Chariandy's novel Brother will be defended by Lisa Ray on Canada Reads 2019.

The 2019 debates are happening on March 25-28, 2019 and will be hosted by Ali Hassan.

David Chariandy has been a known commodity since his award-winning 2007 novel Soucouyant arrived on the scene. But the writer and university educator continues to work on his craft — as seen in Brother and his 2018 nonfiction work I've Been Meaning to Tell You: A Letter to My Daughter.

Brother won the 2017 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, the 2018 Toronto Book Award and the 2018 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. It was also longlisted for the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize and is on the Canada Reads 2019 longlist.

The film and television rights for Brother have been picked up by Toronto production companies Conquering Lion and Hawkeye Pictures, with Clement Virgo attached to adapt the screenplay and direct the film.

"I'm a fiction writer and this is clearly the work of the imagination. It's set in a time period that is very different from today's world. But I still wanted to capture what Scarborough was really like for a child in the early 1990s, particularly a child with a black mother and a South Asian father growing up at that particular time.

"There was, at that time, a lot of anxiety about visible minorities moving into the area and changing the landscape. I grew up hearing these stories — about people I love and respect, who were profoundly creative and hardworking and simply had dreams of living a good life. These stories are often overlooked and ignored. I wanted to capture this narrative, one of resilience, creativity, tenderness and love."