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The Current Transcript for January 3, 2022

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

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She spoke English and Ojibwe. And one time I asked her, Why don't you speak good English with us at home? And she said, We're not English people.

MATT GALLOWAY: When Patricia Ningewance was growing up, it was her grandmother that made sure she learnt the Ojibwe language that was at the heart of her community. Now, Ningewance herself as a teacher of Indigenous languages and her efforts have been recognised with an Order of Canada. Coming up, we continue our New Year's look at some of those who received Canada's highest honour. And hear why language is an act of defiance and how she ended up teaching in the same building where she was forced to attend residential school. Also this morning.

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The creative act requires not only freedom, but also this assumption of freedom. If creative artists worry, if they will still be free tomorrow, then they will not be free today.

MG: When Salman Rushdie was stabbed while speaking on stage last year, it was seen not just as an attack on the author but also on the freedom itself to write and read. Last fall, several of his friends and colleagues gathered in Toronto to stand with Rushdie and the right to freedom of expression. In 30 minutes, three of those friends on why Rushdie's fight is their fight and why they're worried about the state of discourse today. We start, though, with the pride of Montreal. The hottest young tennis player in men's tennis. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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Felix Auger-Aliassime on why Canadian tennis has a bright future

Guest: Felix Auger-Aliiassime

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[Sound: Tennis game]

MG: It's the unmistakeable sound of a tennis match, but not just any match.

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Canada. All the 2022 Davis Cup World Champions. They become the 16th different nation to lift the Davis Cup and end an extraordinary week in Malaga. Scenes of jubilation. Felix Auger-Aliassime completes an unbeaten week as he overcomes Alex de Minaur.

Quite a moment, winning the Davis Cup in November capped a remarkable 2022 for Felix Auger-Aliassime. The Davis Cup four singles titles, ranking number sixth in the world and 2023 started with defeat on the court in Adelaide this week. But his victories far outweigh an occasional loss and those wins have earned him distinction by being named the Canadian Press Male Athlete of the Year in 2022 with the Australian Open of course just weeks away. Felix Auger-Aliassime, good morning.

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Thanks for having me.

MG: What is it like to hear that moment again?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Well, it's truly special because to win individually, something to win as a team with these guys that are good friends of mine for many years. Also, the fact that it was carried through Davis Cup was a special for all of us. I was really happy that I was able to be a part of it. That's for sure. A moment that I remember for a very long time. I hope it's not the last one.

MG: I hope it's not the last one. What is it like being part of a team? Because tennis is such an individual sport, obviously. And this is this is individual, but it's different. What's it like being part of a team?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: No, it's very different. I mean, just the fact that you can lose matches throughout the competition but still come back and win it like we were down twice against Germany and Italy and Vermont to come back from one leg deficit and win the deciding doubles and then beat Australia to love in the final. I think that's what's good is, you know, you have a chance to redeem yourself and also to have the support from the captain, everybody on the bench. I have that all the time and other things. So I think that's why I was able to play well and step up my game every time I was playing for my team.

MG: Is it like you're playing for your team? Like when you're playing for yourself, it's obviously for you. But when you have that team, do you feel like an extra pressure to to live up to the expectations and what your team-mates are doing?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Well, yeah, an extra pressure, but one that I actually like. You know, I would say it's more of a motivation to to never give up and to really try everything to get a point for your team-mates good pressure. That's why I think I played well this year. I feel like the support of Team-Mates, the staff and everybody involved just pushes me to dig deep and find a way to get through and win. Not only for me, but for all of them.

MG: This is such a huge moment for Canada and for Canadian tennis, and I just wonder how you understand how we got to this point. I mean, what has happened in Canadian tennis in the last ten years that has put you and other players at that ultra elite level?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: I mean, of course, we've seen it coming more and more in the last ten or 15 years. Of course, there's been a lot of money and resources and coaching and everything invested in to the future of tennis, trying to not only make one good player, many good players. A couple years ago we had Milos and Cameron and of course was one of the best players we've ever had. Then after that, more players kept coming years after. And I think that's just a testament of all the work and the investment that everybody has put Canada and the players individually. And I think there's just a pretty good energy going. There's a lot of belief that the players can do great things, and I hope that this win also brings us further and that that inspires kids to also dream big and and achieve great things in the sport.

MG: What does that belief feel like? I mean, is there the sense amongst Canadian tennis players that anything is kind of possible?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Of course, more and more we were not looked at as a nation that tennis players and now we're one of the best, if not the best. And we wanted to pick up we won the Davis Cup. So now Tony believes it's just that we feel like we belong amongst the best tennis nations in the world. And and we've proved it to ourselves and all the other stuff is very different. Now, when you talk about in tennis, Canadian players, when you think, you know, back in the day people with us but but now you've been thinking why.

MG: Is there a bit of swagger when you walk into into the stadium now?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: I mean, I don't know. We'll see next year, but. Yeah. Well, more and more cost of living for all the birds. And I hope that that also brings confidence not only for, you know, then especially United have played or been active on playing on the team, but also the other guys that were supporting us on the bench. I hope that inspires them and gives them also confidence to to try and reach that level and to feel like they belong.

MG: After you won the Davis Cup, you went to Togo, which is where your father was born. Tell me about that trip. Why did you want to go there?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Well, I started a project started of 2020 around giving back to the youth and the education of young children, kids and also teenagers. Young adults are starting their freshman career. And this was the first opportunity that I had to actually go. And it was a beautiful trip with all my family. And it was special to, of course, see from my own eyes what's been done with the project, but also to see family members again. To see again when my day. You grew up where you started playing tennis himself and where he was raised. So it's always special to go back there and start think it was even more special than when I went as a kid.

MG: What did it mean for you to go back as as somebody who has done extraordinarily well? I mean, there are there are expectations. But you also see, you know, the sacrifice that parents made to get you to that point. What was that like?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Yes. Certainly gives you a perspective. And again, we just think of how privileged and lucky you are that I would grow up in the place I did and the resources and infrastructure that I had. And that's the bit the goal of them. Little by little, I'm trying to give back, give these young kids also a better chance of starting their lives as a mangosteen or someone that you see what my dad, for example, had to go through. And then also you see how proud they are there. You feel like when I went, it's not only me winning, but everybody's winning together and and the support is amazing. And then where is my career?

MG: Is that what it feels like, that when you win, that they're all there with you?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Yeah, that's how it feels. And like my dad keeps telling me, that's how we see things over there. And they support their families and support their people. And for them, my mom was not Canadian. Right. But you feel like I'm from [unintelligible]. I could play for them as well. But yeah, when I win they feel like they win as well.

MG: You said something interesting about what your father went through. I mean, what has he told you about what life was like growing up there?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Well, you do everything for yourself was always opportunities for everybody, my kids and family. So he really had to go out and there and everything himself. No excuses. So I think in growing up, tried to give me the work ethic, the belief and resilience also to try and keep going, even if things are not going exactly how he wants. So all those things were very important to me growing up and I feel like a big part of that was also because of his upbringing and the experiences he went through growing up.

MG: And so and those are things that you carry with you now.

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Yeah, of course. And they still very important. I was very lucky, very blessed in my career. But if things so resonate.

MG: I want to play something for you. And this is not tennis. This is another part of your life. Have a listen.

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[French speech]

[Sound: Piano]

[Chatter in French]

MG: Felix, that's you on the piano?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: I'm not exactly. I mean, I was, I got a lot of help [laughs].

MG: You're playing. It is an amazing scene. If people haven't seen the video, you're playing at the stadium in Montreal and you're sitting alongside an incredible piano player and Alexander Solecki. Tell me a little bit about that scene, what that was like.

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: I have to say, I was pretty nervous because I've been following her career. She's an amazing artist. So it's kind of nerve wracking for me to be on that piano and try to play with her. But she was committed a really fun night. She really made me feel comfortable and tried to tell me if you. I should say two things on the show. Better, pay better. And she adds that she made she made the moment even even better. And that's also been one really good memory that's outside of on the tennis court. That moment was also very special.

MG: How long have you been playing piano for?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Well, I was when I was a kid. My sister and I. That's something I kept doing a little bit on the side. I kind of dropped for a few years and then came back to it when I was about 12, 13. And then I've been playing a little bit whenever I can. I wish I could play more, but my schedule now and all this stuff to keep playing. But it's something that I love.

MG: What do you get from playing the piano? I mean, what does it give you? It's so different in terms of pace and intensity than being out at Centre Court, smashing the tennis ball back at an opponent. What does it give you?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Yeah, but in a similar way, you know, of course it's more sweat, but it's also about control and precision composure. And I think those are things that you you find the swing down on. And for me. You know, I'm not a good player at all, but it was more like the process of learning to that I thought was interesting, just sitting there and like trying, trying and missing and and, you know, keep on trying. And I feel like the process of actually learning an instrument or learning something teaches you a lot of things, you know, patience, resilience, not to get frustrated. It's going well. And because I was a kid, I was very impatient, you know, and things weren't working as I wanted, like, like incentives, for example, when things weren't so, so easy came so easy and quick. I had to learn how to also understand or, like, deal with, you know, frustration that things weren't coming as I wanted. So but they can also give, gave me that.

MG: Does that happen it on the court as well? I mean, you win a lot, but you don't win every match. You lose some matches, too. And I just wonder, what do you learn from losing?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Or you learn a lot of sports by yourself. If we win all the time, we never kind of see the bad side of ourselves or like how we react or how we deal with the challenge or tougher situations. I feel like sport, like tennis, where you actually do a lot of like I mean, there's just one, one guy at the end of the week that that wins all the matches. Eventually you lose most of the time. So you learn rapidly to cope with failure and coming back after losing. So like over the years I've been able to deal with that much better. I get to to down to frustrated and being able to come back to court the next day with the right attitude.

MG: At the end of that video where you're playing piano, you get really emotional because she turns you around after she plays Happy Birthday and all of your friends and family are there in the stadium with you. Yeah. Tell me about that reaction, what that was like.

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Yeah, it was genuine natural to have everybody there at one moment, like all at the same time. It's all people that I don't see often and I try to see whenever I'm back home, which doesn't happen often to have everybody there at the same time. Yeah, made me very emotional. I also, I was very surprised. So that was a success from when people that organised that. The reason why made me so emotional was that people that I care deeply about and I don't get to see them.

MG: What is that like being on the move all the time? I mean, where's home these days for you?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: I am. I am on the move a lot, which I like, actually. It's a privilege to be able to travel. It's a beautiful thing, but it's not, yeah, I'm usually in Monaco whenever I'm not on the road.

MG: Let me ask you about what had to be a highlight of the career thus far, and that is beating Rafael Nadal when you're standing on the court and he's on the other end of the court looking at you, what goes through your mind?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Well, it was I was pretty nervous. I mean, it wasn't the first time we played, of course, and I remember the first time, but 2019, yeah, I was bitten. I was almost shaking little bit before. I mean, when he when he actually arrived on the court, just the sound of the crowd. And you just felt like you weren't just playing a player. You were playing the whole legacy like a legend. Right? And so I put so much pressure on you with the opponents, but with the time, of course, me being a better player, the more confident than I was the first played. We played twice this year and the first time I lost a very tight match and we played a couple of weeks ago, I felt like I felt more confident. I felt like I could actually maybe win. But it's it's still very special to play and more players to be able to beat them. And it's also something I'll remember for a while.

MG: What goes through your mind at the end of that match when you have beaten him and you walk off the court, he shakes your hand. I mean, is that like kind of one of those you know, they talk about those pinch me moments where you can't believe that this is actually happening. Is that one of those moments for you?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Well, I have more belief that that I could do it, but it's still. But you think like, oh, this is over. They know. Oh, my, my grandkids are in the future. Maybe because there will always be legends of our sport. And Roger and Novak and and I feel very privileged that I had the opportunity to be like in a in a timing where I'm already, you know, a player, professional player, but to have the opportunity to play them and and that was it was actually to beat all of them once. And so that those are things that I'm also proud of.

MG: That generation of those great players. I mean, that's a fading generation in terms of their moving out of the spotlight in many ways. And you're moving in. Do you feel like your next?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Me and many other sports, we're trying to make a name for ourselves and also win the biggest tournaments there is out there. So hopefully my time comes, but I'm not the only guy. There's a lot of deserving players out there working hard for this. They're playing amazing. So the next two years that they're going to be are going to be very interesting to speak, was able to put themselves and, you know, really as dominant players for the future. These guys have left a big legacy behind them. They've raised the bar really high sports. For me, it's very motivating to try and of course, first, make the best career for myself and to be in a position where where I can challenge myself with the other guys of my age to try and be the best.

MG: What does success look like for you in this year? Coming up? What would success be for you?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: Well, the first thing I always want every year to improve as a player like I want to success would be that next year, if we talk again that I'm a better player than than I am today and you're ranking or the results that you've had. But sometimes I can also feel like I'm just better in certain areas. And that's actually the most I can do is just try to be better and with the things that I control. But of course, in terms of results, I'm trying to to win the biggest tournaments. I've won two, but to win Masters 1000 Grand Slams, those are things that are next on my list of things to win the big challenge. But I'm looking forward to next year to try and try and do that.

MG: And just finally, I mean, this is hard, hard work to get to that point. Is it still fun?

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: It's a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun to challenge yourself, try to improve, try to also it's it's a learning process, learning curve all the time. And I enjoy that part a lot, actually. Of course, winning, winning is a great thing. And you you know, you do a sport. I think I play tennis for all the emotions that you can you can get from it, but also the fact, you know, to to to still enjoy to go to work every day and try to improve. This is something that I also enjoy as well. And I think it would be very difficult if I didn't. So I'm happy that I'm able to enjoy winning, but also the process of going to work every day.

MG: It is amazing to watch your career. I mean, it must be like you're strapped to a rocket because it seems like it's going straight up.

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: That's a good way to put it. I like that.

MG: Congratulations on everything and good luck. We'll be watching. Thanks.

FELIX AUGER-ALIASSIME: We thank you. Thank you so much.

MG: Canadian tennis sensation Felix Auger-Aliassime. Pride of Montreal, as I mentioned. The CBC News is up next. And then we continue to kick off the new year by hearing from Canadians who are being recognised for their contributions to this country. Felix obviously is one of them. There are others who have been awarded the Order of Canada, people like Dr. Ivar Mendez, known for his groundbreaking work in robotics and virtual health care.

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Virtual healthcare is going to be part of our future. It is an unstoppable. However, the person to person interaction will be fundamental, as it always has been. And we will have this hybrid system that hopefully will allow us to provide health care in a more efficient and timely fashion. Of course, it is not a silver bullet, but it is going to be an important element of improving health care.

MG: Coming up, we'll introduce you to two more people newly named to the Order of Canada. That's coming up in six minutes. My name is Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current on CBC Radio One. Stay with us.

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Order of Canada recipients recognized for work in health-care, preserving Indigenous languages

Guests: Dr. Ivar Mendez, Patricia Ningewance

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

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MG: Still to come, my conversation with writers who were reeling after last year's attack on Salman Rushdie, an attack on the freedom to write and read. But first, talking to Canadians of the highest order. This week on the programme we are meeting some of the latest recipients of the Order of Canada. Dr. Ivar Mendez is being recognised for his work in health care, specifically pioneering the use of robotics and other virtual tools to help treat patients in remote communities. Dr. Mendez is the Fred H. Wigmore professor and provincial head of the Department of Surgery at the University of Saskatchewan and the Saskatchewan Health Authority. Dr. Ivar Mendez Good morning.

DR. IVAR MENDEZ: Good morning, Matt.

MG: Congratulations on this.

DR. IVAR MENDEZ: Thank you very much.

MG: What does this recognition mean to you being honoured with the top honour in this country? What does it mean to you?

DR. IVAR MENDEZ: It is truly, as you said, and. It is an honour for me to receive this recognition. You know, all of us want to make a contribution to our country. And in recognising being recognised by that is is a true honour and a privilege.

MG: You are being recognised, as I mentioned in large part for your work in virtual health care and this is being seen in the hub that you're building in Saskatchewan. Tell me about that health care hub.

DR. IVAR MENDEZ: Well, as you know, virtual care does come to the forefront during the COVID pandemic. We've been working on a virtual health care technologies for the past decade. And the idea is, can we use technology to reach the people that need access to health care and specifically in the individuals or the communities that are underserviced that are the ones that the least that need the most. And we've been working on on that idea, as I said, for almost ten years. What we are ambition in is this mission control centre that will be populated by physicians, nurses, technicians that will be able to provide health care on real time to remote communities where we have deployed these advanced virtual care technologies, remote presence, robotic systems, robotic ultrasonography and other technologies that will allow us to reach these individuals that needs health care on real time.

MG: You used the phrase mission control, and I think people hear that and they think of NASA. Is that is that what this thing would look like in the hub itself in Saskatchewan?

DR. IVAR MENDEZ: It is. That is how we would look like and it would look like a NASA mission control centre where you have these screens that are around the walls and you have in the middle all these individuals that will be able to respond to health care issues. For example, let's say in Saskatchewan, one of the most northern communities in Saskatchewan is called Stony Rapids, is really at the border of Saskatchewan. And if you are arrested over Stoney Rabbits and you have chest pain and you may go to your nursing station where they would call the hub, the hub would then will activate their device that is available in Stoney Rapids. And we have a remote presence robotic system there. The physician in the hub will be able to look at you, listen to your chest, do an electrocardiogram, examine you and do the history, and then be able to determine if you did have a heart attack or is maybe indigestion. And if you did have a heart attack, they may be able to connect you to one of the cardiologists that in [unintelligible] centre either in Saskatoon or Regina that will be able to determine your disposition if you need to come to a centre where you need to be examined and have this, then you will be able to come to that centre. But not just the closest centre, but the centre has availability of a bed that has the test systems, that has a cardiologist with a [unitelligible] type of programme who will get the closest ambulance to you and get you to the centre where you have a bed and you'll be able to be admitted to that centre, be examined and if you need surgery they'll have surgery and they will be able to follow you back in your community through the hub. This is the idea of the hub, a comprehensive virtual health care system that will allow us to use the resources of the province.

MG: Just briefly, I mean, what would be in the community? What would be in Stony Rapids if we're talking about that community that would connect you with the hub? Like what is the machinery that would be there?

DR. IVAR MENDEZ: Yeah, we already have in Stoney Rapids. It's what's called a remote presence robotic system. It's a system that can actually be controlled by the physician. In the house, for example, this robot can autonomously navigate the corridors of the hospital, go to the emergency room, go to the to where the patient is. And that system has availability of peripheral devices, such as an a stethoscope, access, electrocardiogram, such as a respirometry, devices that allow the physician not only to examine the patient, but to do some tests in real time.

MG: And you would be able, if you are in that hub, you know, many, many. Many kilometres away from that community, you would be able as a physician to diagnose that patient remotely.

DR. IVAR MENDEZ: That's exactly what it is. It is, it's Stoney Rapids. It's about a 750 kilometres away from Saskatoon. So the individual in the hub will be able to see the patient, to listen to the chest, to listen to their heart, to give doing the electrocardiogram, to talk to the nurses, talk to the family members of the patient, talk to the patient and make a decision about the triaging of that patient or the treatment of that patient in the community itself.

MG: How far away is something like this? To a lot of people, it sounds not just like NASA. It might sound like The Jetsons. How far away is something like this?

DR. IVAR MENDEZ: This is very interesting. As I said, you know, in Saskatchewan, we have developed a programme for remote presence devices. We have already 17 of these devices distributed in many communities in the North. And now where we are vision is the centre, the control centre, the command centre, we call it, that will actually tie all these devices with the resources of the province. So we be able to activate the resources of the province. You know, one of the issues that we confront in health care map is the inefficiencies of our health care. So, for example, if you have, as I said, a potential problem with your heart, you may be driven to the closest hospital, but that closest hospital may not have the beds available because all of its health taking may not have a cardiologist available or or the diagnostic systems. So then you kind of the care gets delayed with these a system that we were building, we will be able to really match the needs with the availability of resources. And I think that will become a more efficient system.

MG: One of the things I could imagine people thinking as they listen to this is wondering whether they would get the same level of care from a robot and physicians who are 700 kilometres away than they would if the physician was there at their bedside, so that people might think that that things would be missed, that you're not going to have that same level of care if you aren't looking in the doctor's eyes, are looking in the nurse's eyes at the nurse practitioners eyes. What would you say to people?

DR. IVAR MENDEZ: You know, these systems, these technologies are only tools for the physician to be able to provide more efficient care. They really do not replace the physician. The physician is still part of the whole system. But as technologies have all been mapped, if, for example, artificial intelligence will be able to be more efficient than radiology, for example, to determine if a chest X-ray is normal or abnormal, and that has been already proven. So that will allow time for that radiologist to concentrate on the chest x rays, for example, that are abnormal. And more importantly, about the issue of using these technologies will allow the physicians more time to look at the patient in a holistic manner to do things that only humans can do. And that is that the compassion of the physician with the patient to look at all the aspects of the patient's health. And I think these tools will facilitate, actually enhance the patient, the physician patient relationship.

MG: Do you see this as the future of health care?

DR. IVAR MENDEZ: Well, I see the future of health care as a hybrid system. Virtual health care is going to be part of our future. It is an unstoppable. However, the person to person interaction, as I said, will be fundamental, as it always has been. And we will have this hybrid system that hopefully will allow us to provide health care in a more efficient and timely fashion, specifically maths, for those populations that are remote, that have access to health care, where life and that happens and they don't have the prompt access to health care that we all deserve.

MG: In part, do you see this as one of the solution to the crisis that health care across this country is in right now, whether it's, as you mentioned, those hospitals that don't have beds because patients are in there and not, you know, being moved to other parts of the system. There are long backlogs when it comes to surgery, for example. Is this one of the ways out of this crisis?

DR. IVAR MENDEZ: I think this is one of the alternatives, of course, and it's not a silver bullet, but it is going to be an important element of improving of our health care. You know, we have tremendous hard time now in terms of health care workers that are burned out in Saskatchewan alone, there's a deficit of about 2000 nurses. So allowing to use technology to be able to reach these patients, to be able to be more efficient, to be able to be more timely, I think it will decompress the system and eventually there's going to be a balance in the system between the virtual care. Acknowledges and the person to person care.

MG: Are you optimistic? Just finally, I mean, we're at the beginning of a new year and you come into the new year with all sorts of optimism and hope, and this year will be better than than years past. Are you optimistic that as we move through this phase of the pandemic, that there is the real opportunity to seise on on that possibility and change the way that our health care system operates?

DR. IVAR MENDEZ: Yeah. You know, one of the things about this catch on, Matt, that comes when you asked me that question is the open skies of Saskatchewan. And I and I'm really optimistic about the future. I think one of the silver linings of the pandemic has been the the use of virtual care that has really come up in great force. And it has been culturally accepted now by both providers and patients. And I think a virtual care is going to be a part of the solution of of the future. And I'm optimistic as we use these technologies, we will be able to slowly starting to repair our health care system.

MG: You're about to leave those open skies of Saskatoon. You're getting set to depart as the surgery head for the Saskatchewan Health Authority. Where are you off to?

DR. IVAR MENDEZ: Well, precisely. I'm actually concentrating on on virtual care work, both on a global level, as well as in partnership with the first nations of Saskatchewan. I believe this work is so important and is going to be, as I said, an important part of the solutions of the future, that I have made a decision that all my time will be dedicated to continue to develop the system and be able to one day have this hybrid system that will allow us to provide care, especially to the people that have a less access to health care in our country.

MG: It's fascinating to hear about the work that you're doing, work that has, as I mentioned, been celebrated with an Order of Canada. Congratulations again. And thank you very much.

DR. IVAR MENDEZ: Thank you very much, Matt.

MG: Dr. Ivar Mendez is just named to the Order of Canada. He was in Saskatoon for 50 years, Patricia Ningewance has been a leader in keeping the Ojibwe language of Anishinaabe emotion alive in Manitoba and in her native northern Ontario. And she's now being honoured for that work with the Order of Canada. Patricia Ningewance joins us from our Winnipeg studio. Patricia, good morning to you.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Good morning.

MG: Congratulations.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Thank you.

MG: What does it mean to you that your work in teaching this language and in, as I mentioned, keeping it alive is being recognised in this way?

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Well, it gives me a chance to talk about it on national radio. More than that, I'm very grateful because it's been a lifetime of wonderful work. Hard to believe I'm being honoured for something that doesn't even feel like work.

MG: Really? Yes. I mean, learning a language is is a lot of work. Tell me about how you learnt it.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Okay. I grew up in a place called Ningewance Bay, which is in Lac Seul, northern Ontario. And by the way, that's a place where there were only 25 of us in that community. And two of us have received Order of Canada.

MG: There's something in the water, clearly.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: But I grew up there where everybody spoke the language. All of our little families there, we just had that environment to grow up in. My grandmother, my parents, aunts and uncles.

MG: Who is the person that helped you the most with the language? Was that your grandmother?

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: I think so, because she was a political person. Oh, she spoke English and Ojibwe. And one time I asked her, Why don't you speak English with us at home? And she said, We're not English people. So that was very meaningful to hear her say that she didn't take any anything from people. We used to have policemen who would come to our home when we lived in town to harass us, thinking we had drinking parties at our house simply because we were noisy, laughing all the time. And one day she was making bannock, and she answered the door with her bannock bowl, and she threw it in his face and told him never to bother us again. And he never did. So she was like that.

MG: Do you feel like you've inherited some of that from her? Doing things your own way and not taking anything from anyone?

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: I hope so. Yes, I think so. She also introduced our language games to us. She. She's the one that made me really appreciate language. To make word play, to appreciate.

MG: Can you give me an example of that? I mean, what would that sound like?

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: One of the word plays that we had as children was to to make up words out of one single word and to make variations of it so that it was, you know, extremely funny.

MG: Could you give me an example of that?

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: I could only think of gross stuff.

MG: Sometimes that's, that's all right.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Like, for instance, we talking about somebody's pimple and then you could describe it, you know, it's colour and texture. And for instance, we'd say [foreign speech]. Green, pussy...

MG: But as a kid, that helps you learn the language, right? I mean, it makes it fun.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Oh, yeah. That was our toy.

MG: As a teacher. Is that how you think about creating joy in a connection with with people when you're teaching the languages to make it fun, to make it entertaining?

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: You have to be you have to have a sense of humour. You have to want to entertain your students as well as educate them, as well as pass on the structure of the language to get them to speak the language.

MG: What do you love about about the language? I mean, part of it is what you were just talking about in terms of the playfulness of it. But when you speak the language, what do you love about it?

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: It contains our worldview, who we are as people. In it, we have our relationships, we have our humour. It comes from this land, no other place. If we ever lose our language, we can't go to Europe to reclaim it. So would be a big loss if we ever lost that.

MG: And there have been efforts, as we know, to try to destroy the language.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Well, yes. When they introduced the residential schools, the sole intent was to take away the language, and they succeeded in doing that.

MG: You attended residential school yourself.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: One year when I was five and another year when I was 13.

MG: And then, I mean, this is remarkable. You ended up teaching at the very same place where you attended residential schools.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Yes, that was Sault Ste Marie, wonderful little university called Algoma University. My office was just maybe ten feet away from where my bed used to be.

MG: What does that I mean, how do you how do you process that? What is that like to be in that place again, teaching something and being involved in something that, you know, authorities and nation tried to tried to remove, tried to destroy.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: It was coming full circle. There was I certainly didn't miss the irony of it, to be teaching, giving back the language in a place where it was forbidden.

MG: Is that what you've called learning language? In some ways and speaking the language in act of defiance?

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Yes. Actually was my grandson who came up with that expression. He I'm very proud of him. I wasn't able to pass on the language to my son, my England litigator. But he's turned out to be a really nice person. I'm very proud of him and his career. But my grandson, I was able to teach him the language. And now he teaches at university, teaches Ojibwe.

MG: How did you teach him the language? What was that like?

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Well, first I took him to language camps, his mother and I, and then I took him to my classes at the university. There he saw me teach and also learnt the language at the same time. So he learnt how to teach at that level by coming with me for five years and now he's teaching.

MG: What does it mean to you that that he has followed in those footsteps?

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Of course, it's very heartening to see that someone will take my place when I go. He is learning the language leaps and bounds, and he's also a linguist. He finished his master's last year in linguistics.

MG: You've been doing this for as I mentioned, a number of years. And a number of students, not just your grandson, but a number of students have come through your classrooms. What have you seen- I mean, is there is there a story of of how students have responded to that process of learning a language that perhaps they didn't think they would be able to to learn?

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Last year, I was able to teach immersion for one month. And at the beginning of that month, there was one student who could not pronounce one word in Ojibwe. And by the end of four weeks, she was able to converse with everybody else.

MG: Wow.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: I was so proud of her.

MG: What did that tell you?

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: That we all can do it and that my method works? For the first two weeks, I gave them a really sound grounding in the grammar with with drills, etc. and games. And then the last two weeks they were able to relax a bit and talk with each other.

MG: You've done a lot of work helping to preserve a number of indigenous languages, languages that might be under threat of disappearing. So when you see a story like that of somebody learning and surpassing their own expectations, what does that tell you?

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: I should mention that I I've also been publishing books now, so I wrote one book called Pocket Ojibwe and then I had it translated into Inuktitut and Cree and Ojibwe. Cree and Inuktitut are said to be three languages that I have a really good chance of survival. So I'm happy that I was able to do that. If there's good work done, I think we could survive. We need to have a good 4050 year plan on how to keep up the languages. 50 years can go pretty fast. We need to have native language books for students to read. We need movies in the language. We need all sorts of development of audio materials. And the other thing is that we need funded learning so people could learn immersion style, so that they can learn to speak and not just learn it 2 hours a week at university.

MG: But actually be able to to like you would learn any any other language. Yes. To be able to have those funded classes.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Yes. And to have material to resource material to to use audio visual. All these language endeavours cannot work unless we get rid of that block that we have in our throats, that block that prevents us from passing on the language to our children or students learning it in school. We have this block and I think residential school had something to do with it. I think we really need to get over that hump before we can start learning the languages effectively.

MG: This is a block. You said earlier that you weren't able to teach your son the language. That's the block that you yourself have experienced.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Yes, on my family, my brothers and sisters. I think it's more than that, though. I think language is power. So when one group comes over and says, this is our language that you're going to learn and it happens, then the native language becomes second place, it's a lower status. So we need to raise awareness of the importance of languages. We need more presence. That's what we need.

MG: Would you teach us a word? I mean, for people who are intrigued, they don't know where to start. What is the word that that you would begin with?

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: I usually begin with the word [indigenous speech], which is not bonjour, like in French. It's from the language. And it's a greeting, meaning, Hello, how are you? And I start off with that because the O is not oo as in English or o, it's in between. Oah. So we start off with that sound.

MG: Say it again.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Bau..jou.

MG: Bau...jou.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Mm hmm.

MG: That's a great way to begin and an appropriate place to begin and end this conversation. Congratulations again on the work that you've done. I mean, what the future that you have laid out in terms of where you want to be will be possible, in part because of the work that you have done and the work that's being celebrated here.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Yes.

MG: Congratulations.

PATRICIA NINGEWANCE: Thank you.

MG: It's a real pleasure to talk to you. Thank you very much. Patricia Ningewance is an Ojibwe language teacher and assistant professor at the University of Manitoba. She is a new recipient of the Order of Canada. All week we will continue to meet extraordinary Canadians being honoured for their work. Kind of a nice way to kick off 2023. Well, coming up after your regional update, defending freedom of expression, my conversation with high profile writers and editors after the attack on their friend Salman Rushdie. We're back in 90 seconds. My name is Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

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The fight to preserve free speech

Guests: Deepa Mehta, Ian McEwan, Louise Dennys

MG: I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current. The attack on Salman Rushdie last year shocked the literary community. Rushdie had been living under threat since Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini condemned him to death for his novel Satanic Verses in 1989. After years in hiding, Salman Rushdie had been living a more public life. But then last August, he was stabbed repeatedly, losing the sight in one eye, and the use of one hand. In September I was part of a special event in support of the freedom to write and read - and in support of Salman Rushdie. The event was put on by the Toronto International Festival of Authors, as well as PEN Canada, Penguin Random House Canada and the Writers' Trust of Canada. High profile writers were invited to read from Rushdie's work and speak about free expression.

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VOICE 1: Full disclosure and no surprise, I am a Salman Rushdie fan. Not only do I admire his writing, his turn of phrase, his wit, his brilliance, but also his essential humanity.

VOICE 2: When writers have been friends for more than 40 years, the emails between them have a familiar shorthand. "I'm sending", he wrote. "It's slow". Then, he added, "Writing is slow too".

VOICE 3: The creative act requires not only freedom, but also this assumption of freedom. If creative artists worry, if they will still be free tomorrow, then they will not be free today. If they are afraid of the consequences of their choice of subjects or of their treatments of those subjects, then their choices will not be determined by talent, but by fear. If we are not confident of our freedom, then we are not free.

VOICE 4: And in this age of information, this age of information, overkill literature can still bring the human news. The hearts and minds. News from China, from Japan, from Cuba, from Iran. Literature brings the base metal of information.

VOICE 5: For so many writers. This era has been anything but free. Libel chill. The courts being used to bankrupt writers and publishers. Prison cells, torture, assassination attempts, assassination itself.

MG: That was John Ralston Saul - before him, Deepa Mehta, John Irving, Ian McEwan, and Adrienne Clarkson. After the event, I sat down back stage with three people who took part in the readings. Deepa Mehta is a Canadian director whose movies included the Oscar nominated film Water. She also made the film version of Rushdie's Midnight's Children. Ian McEwan is a bestselling novelist. His new book is called Lessons. And Louise Dennys is long-time Canadian publisher and editor for Salman Rushdie. Here's that conversation - it first aired in September.

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How is Salman Rushdie doing?

DEEPA MEHTA: He's recovering. He's recovering slowly. He's recovering medically, slowly. They don't quite yet know the full extent of some of the damage. He may lose an eye. Still, the trauma was obviously huge. But he's recovering slowly with the great support of his beloved wife and friends.

MG: Have you spoken or emailed with him?

IAN MCEWAN: I've spoken with him directly, but exchange few emails and had emails from Eliza, his wife. And the sense one has is that he's still there and he's going to be back. And he's a man of immense courage, great spirit and great humour and sense of mischief. I sense that is all still ticking away nicely.

MG: Deepa, you were nodding when he said mischief and humour.

DEEPA MEHTA: I know, because when he answered mischief, that's I thought, my God, that's one adjective of God to use in my talk today. Is that that's so-so mind. It's actually his eyes glint with mischief and it's so beautiful. So I'm glad that still there. I mean.

MG: What was your reaction when you heard the news?

DEEPA MEHTA: I was in Delhi when I heard. It was the middle of the night. The phone rang. It was a friend of mine. I still can't believe it. There's a part of me that just. I don't want to believe it.

MG: He don't want to believe it?

DEEPA MEHTA: No, I don't believe that it happened. Of course it did. I mean, it's it's so shocking.

MG: What do you remember about finding out about.

LOUISE DENNYS: This? I was called about 7 a.m. by a friend, Deepa, and that called me from India very soon after that. You called us?

DEEPA MEHTA: Yes, I did. [Unintelligible].

LOUISE DENNYS: Yes. And the world sort of blanks out when someone, a good friend, is so horribly attacked. And at that point, we didn't know if he would live or die. It was just terrifying. Right. And so the news that he's pulling through, I mean, he has you know, he's he's extraordinarily tough minded. And I think that that even helped him pull through physically. He wasn't going to let it get him down.

MG: Were you surprised, Ian, that this happened all those years after the fatwa was unleashed? Because I think a lot of people perhaps thought mistakenly that that that was in the rear-view mirror.

IAN MCEWAN: I think it perhaps it was always in the Rear-View mirror, but it was still us. I was completely astonished. I mean, I was in northwest Scotland with my wife and. We were just coming down with COVID. She was in another room and she let out a kind of shriek when I ran in thinking she'd stabbed herself with a pair of scissors by accident. She said, I can't even tell you. And I said, Tell me. And at that point, one's phone becomes alive with the posse, the World Planetary Posse of friends, supporters who drew round him post fatwah. And that cohort had to learn the language of free speech. We had taken our freedoms for granted many ways in the West in the couple of years that followed, when his protection was at its most intense, and the secrecy of where he was was so well held by all those friends, never revealed. We refined the language and his in that time that I learnt that. All the freedoms we have freedom of assembly, freedom of voting, freedom of the franchise and so on. All are underpinned by one other freedom. Freedom of expression. Because all our freedoms had to be thought and spoken and written down at some point. Ask any feminist, activist or environmentalist still fighting various fights now, and when it goes under an autocracy of one kind or another, anyone who's a member of PEN will know how indeed the great resource of free expression is shrinking. So at that moment, salmon studying, I think, just activated all of us. It was a surge of communality.

MG: You know, you mentioned the idea of taking it for granted before that. Do you look back and wonder why you took it for granted?

IAN MCEWAN: I think we lived an easy life.

LOUISE DENNYS: In the seventies.

IAN MCEWAN: We no longer thought religion was a big deal for those of us in the secular, modern world. And then suddenly the very people that we most supported, like Muslims in Bradford who are under some degree of persecution, were burning books. So there was massive confusion, suddenly. I remember going on television with one of those book burners to have it out, because whatever else they were suffering, as Heine had said, once you start burning books, you'll soon be burning people.

LOUISE DENNYS: And there had been a coming since then. But I think for anyone who had been around the fact that had been part of that activation then I mean, this was a huge reactivation that even in recent times we have been a little lax, perhaps in terms of our recognition that free speech and the freedom to write and read is the fundamental. And it was a horror. I and I think for some of us, we had always been waiting for it. I felt in myself. I said, Oh, God, it's finally happened.

DEEPA MEHTA: Mm hmm.

MG: But he he was very insistent and being more out, being more public. I remember the first time I interviewed him in New York, and it was cloak and dagger. You couldn't see where you're going the last time. I mean, he came into the studio with a publicist.

DEEPA MEHTA: Oh, he's.

MG: Not looking over his shoulder?

DEEPA MEHTA: No. He made that decision that he couldn't live his life in hiding. I mean, that he had to speak out. He had to continue to write. That was his job. That was his responsibility in the world. And he took on also the added responsibility of making sure that he could fight for other people as well. So he became president of PEN. But I think it was a very deliberate decision. He could not spend his life in hiding.

IAN MCEWAN: He wanted a normal life.

DEEPA MEHTA: I wanted parties. And there was.

LOUISE DENNYS: Something that happened that is very interesting. And we'd spoken about it maybe a couple of weeks before the attack. I was in New York and we were having dinner, as Louise knows, with Solomon and Eliza and and he said, I have this foreboding about what's what's happening in America. And he said, in New York, it's really bad now. So the fact that the attack happened in America, a place that he actually chose over India, over England, to feel safe. Has shaken me up because we always thought Canada and America were the safe places to be. He did, too. And what does this mean about safety? I mean, for me, safety, yes. Is important. Freedom of expression is important, but it makes us all vulnerable. And that is the big question. You can't have freedom of expression if you don't if you don't have the courage, the way Salman has had, to speak out.

IAN MCEWAN: Or that you have had to.

LOUISE DENNYS: I mean, you know, one of the dilemmas that I despise and Salman has always helped me with that and made me laugh about it, is that that my work is considered controversial. I hate that word. You know, it's such an easy thing to do. Just give to somebody and then just ignore them because they have that label. And that label is like, well, should the sorry, I don't know, whatever disturber. And the world has changed. I mean, it's not India that just happened. It didn't happen in Saudi Arabia, the stabbing. It didn't happen in Iran. It didn't happen in the Philippines. It happened in America.

DEEPA MEHTA: And it didn't feel out of its time that it was happening now. That it has come back up again in the kind of rage and dislocation that is sweeping across America and across the world.

LOUISE DENNYS: And across the world.

IAN MCEWAN: I think there's a paradox. If you remember, 89 was the year of the fatwa, was also the year, the fall of the Berlin Wall, ten months later. And in many ways, freedom of expression was expanding. Dictatorships were falling.

DEEPA MEHTA: Yeah.

IAN MCEWAN: Now. And what worries me most about the attack on Salman is it is much more consonant with our times. This is the age of the death threat. Yeah. The ease with which people feel. This is also the age of the school shooting across the United States.

MG: Also the age of libraries pulling books, book banning and challenging books.

IAN MCEWAN: But in terms of someone wielding a knife determined to kill, I think all the casually given death threats slightly narrow the field of possibility for actually doing it.

DEEPA MEHTA: Absolutely.

IAN MCEWAN: And also now it's a shrinking resource when it was once a blossoming. So there's something emblematic about this attack. And the irony is that it should be against two men sitting on the stage who were talking about freedom. I mean, that freedom of expression.

MG: What kind of child is that create? When we came for an event where people were talking about the importance of not being silent or being defined forced, but but at the same time, you could imagine that there are people who are saying, hold on a second, this is a different climate and we're going to put a pause on.

DEEPA MEHTA: Yeah.

MG: On what we're putting out.

DEEPA MEHTA: That is the most one of the most dangerous things to consider because libel, chill, book banning chill, death threat a chill is one of the most insidious means of ensuring that free speech is destroyed. But we're seeing in Canada in ways we have never seen before, book banning and libraries being forced to remove books from the shelves by the community. And we got to fight it. Every time we hear of it. So, I mean, writers will keep writing and publishers have to keep publishing. And libraries have to be havens for books and bookstores.

IAN MCEWAN: Institutions have to stiffen.

DEEPA MEHTA: Their they have to stiffen their own [unintelligible].

IAN MCEWAN: Just doing their work.

LOUISE DENNYS: You think they will?

DEEPA MEHTA: Institutions have to stiffen their will. I think he is absolutely right. I think we have to require that they do that constantly.

IAN MCEWAN: I'm thinking here of universities who often cave in on the attack on free speech. So publishers have done it. Festivals have done it.

DEEPA MEHTA: Yes.

IAN MCEWAN: So the need for institutions to sort of smarten up and get a bit more literate about the language of freedom of expression is really, really important.

MG: You wonder whether they will, though deeper, you know.

DEEPA MEHTA: And I do wonder because of what would happen to me about just a year ago. I mean, I was in Canada, wasn't in India, where water was banned and, you know, effigies were being burned.

MG: You're talking about when funny boy.

DEEPA MEHTA: Yeah, the funny boy came out. I mean, I've never had the death threat. I never expected to have death threats in Canada and in Toronto. And they were so ugly and so virulent, it was required that I get to big huge guys and it was really scary. And, and I, I think I wouldn't have survived it without, you know, David and and actually Salman.

MG: You can have it resolved and you can say, well, no, we're going to continue to make the art that we're going to make. But when those threats are that close in your own hometown, is there at all a part of you that starts to rethink as an artist what you're doing?

DEEPA MEHTA: Absolutely. I mean, and that's why that's why I'm terrified. Is that because I feel I'm I'm making a compromise and I am. I mean, I was offered a film to do a fabulous script about Nat King Cole. And I actually got a call saying, don't do it because you're not black. And you might get into trouble. And, you know, three years ago I would have said, I'm going to do it, forget it. But I thought about it and I said, no, because I don't need it. That's the reality of it. I mean, I hope I get over it, but certainly I think what happened with Silver has shaken up. All the bravado I had and all the my fierce nature, I would say, has been compromised.

MG: What happens, Ian, if that chill comes into place for for artists?

IAN MCEWAN: Well, I think we knew, you know, from our contacts back in the eighties with writers and translators, intellectuals in Central Europe, just that kind of fear. And it's not cowardice. These were people with families and, you know, and it was the state, not your fellow citizens. Once it becomes your fellow citizens.

DEEPA MEHTA: Yeah.

IAN MCEWAN: Whipped up in these Twitter storms of loathing and hatred, all written, you know, people sitting on the edge of their beds just freely typing this out. Then I begin to think of another kind of restriction on freedom that I might want to impose if I was king of the world, which is to say no one can write anything on the Internet unless they give us the where they are, who they are. Immediately I hear the response, Yes, but how can resistance movements thriving in Morocco or in Egypt or whatever? So we have somehow I don't know how we get round that. It is so depressing.

MG: Maria Ressa talked about how she was the person who was following Salman Rushdie when he was attacked on stage, that she was reading and speaking right after him, and that the intent of that attack was to frighten people so that you wouldn't go out there.

DEEPA MEHTA: Absolutely right.

MG: And then she went out and she talked as she talked about it here. And there was a stage full of people who talked about that. Yes. Are you optimistic that defiance will turn that around.

DEEPA MEHTA: Whereas Margaret Atwood said today, I, I think one has to work hard to be optimistic. It is a kind of private fears. And Ian raised the question of institutions, institutions like universities who have in the past been upstanding, upholders of freedoms of speech. And what is frightening to me is to see how they are literally abstaining from that responsibility because they're afraid of lacking disappointing donors or getting cancelled. You know, it's an attack from within on free speech.

IAN MCEWAN: I think there will be pushback. The trouble is, when you get a populist politician with a large amount of support, the ease with which he or she could whip up crowds and Twitter crowds and so on is awesome, is terrifying. That shift to the right recently, Sweden, Italy. You know, it's worrying.

DEEPA MEHTA: It's really [unintelligible].

IAN MCEWAN: Worrying. We are in a tough spot, but we mustn't fool ourselves in the West. We are not in the position of the Philippines or Saudi Arabia or China or Russia spectacularly repressing itself, as it were. While Putin is in charge and while we still do have more or less breathable air, as Salman said, we have to gather our forces.

MG: What do you think, I mean, just finally, one of the things that people talked about a lot on stage was the generosity of Salman Rushdie in the generosity that he showed you here in Canada when that film came out. What is it that that you think people need to know about what he said to you, what he offered you?

DEEPA MEHTA: Get off Twitter. Don't be quiet. And the other thing that I really remember is because I was I was surprised about that. But, I mean, Louise knows that. But the people that I knew, who I admired, who I considered friends, all just disappeared. So I thought that if the liberal group, you know, the writers and filmmakers just disappear when something like this happens, then, oh, who is there? And so he said, that's not surprising. Don't be disappointed. Lower your expectations about what you can get.

MG: They encouraged by what you saw here. I mean that a room full of people are there to support him. But also there was on who's on that stage there, too, to talk about it.

DEEPA MEHTA: That is encouraging. But that just it's a handful. It's and that's what that's the reality of it. I want to be encouraged. I'm really tired of being. After the pandemic and after the stabbing of of being discouraged. But the reality is, I don't I look around and I don't feel my God. I mean, I feel apprehensive.

LOUISE DENNYS: Yeah, I think we all have every reason to be apprehensive in this present time. And all this all the questions you have asked are absolutely true. I mean, to what degree we are self-censoring the problems of chill that are creeping in, the very understandable fears we have. That's a pretty scary time. But we have an extraordinary I mean, today we saw an extraordinary group of writers speaking out so vividly themselves about not just about the kind of very special dear human being that he is, but also about the power that he has brought himself to, speaking out and defending. And we can do no less. He's done it for the last that he is putting himself in great danger. So at least one can do is the least we could do is stand up and be read and not be silenced.

MG: I'm really glad to have the chance to talk to you all. It feels like an issue of our time in some ways. And what happened to Salman has led to a much more immediate conversation, it feels like, about this issue. Thank you very much.

IAN MCEWAN: Pleasure.

DEEPA MEHTA: Thank thank you. Thank you.

LOUISE DENNYS: Thank you so much.

MG: Deepa Mehta is a Canadian film-maker. Ian McEwan is a bestselling novelist. And Louise Dennys is the longtime editor for Salman Rushdie. We spoke in September. Salman Rushdie's next novel is being hailed as one of the most anticipated of 2023. Victory City is coming out in February. Louise Dennys introduced it and read an excerpt at that same event:

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So a little bit of context to start. Two brothers, [unintelliglbe], will become the first kings of the legendary 14th century city in southern India, Biz Nagar a.k.a Victory City, have after visiting the beautiful young prophetess [unintelligible] received from her a bag of magic seeds and a promise that from them, a great city of tolerance will grow. After they had come to the designated place and scattered the seeds, their hearts filled with great perplexity and just a little hope. The two brothers climbed to the top of a hill of large boulders and thorn bushes that tore at their peasant clothes and sat down in the late afternoon to wait and watch. After no more than an hour. They saw the air begin to shimmer as it does during the hottest hours of the hottest days. And then the Miracle City started growing before their astonished eyes. The stone edifices pushing up from the rocky ground and the majesty of the Royal Palace and the first great temple too. All these and more arose in old fashioned splendour and stared down towards the palace and the royal enclosure spreading out as far at the far end of the Long Market Street. The mud, wood and cowshed hovels of the common people also made their humble way into the air at the city's periphery. In those first moments, the city was not yet fully alive. Spreading out from the shadow of the barren, bordered hills. It looked like a shining cosmopolis whose inhabitants had all abandoned it. The villas of the rich stood unoccupied. The canopied market stores were empty, awaiting the arrival of florists, butchers, tailors, wine merchants and dentists. The river rushed along and the banks where washer women and washer men would do their work, seemed to wait expectantly for some action that would give meaning to the place. In the royal enclosure, the great elephant house with its 11 arches anticipated the coming of the tuskers and their dung. Then, life began and the hundreds, now thousands of men and women were born full grown from the brown earth, shaking the dirt off their garments and thronging the streets in the evening breeze. Stray dogs and cows walked in the streets. Trees burst into blossom and leaf and the sky swarmed with parrots. Yes, and crows. There was laundry upon the riverbank and royal elephants trumpeting in their mansion and armed guards. Every one of them a woman at the Royal Gates. This is what it must feel like to be a god, Booker said to his brother in a trembling voice. To perform the act of creation, a thing only the gods can do. We must become gods now, Hookah said. To make sure other people worship us. He looked up into the sky. There you see. He pointed. There is our father. The moon. No. His brother shook his head. We'll never get away with that. So that's morning, everything. I'm just going to read you the final words. The Pampa Campana at the end of a long life of 247 years will write in her record of these times, which will be found buried one day. Four and a half centuries later, in the ruins of the great city. Pampa, I have lived to see an empire rise and fall. How are they remembered now these kings and queens, these tyrants. They exist now only in words. While they lived, they were victors or vanquished or both. Now they are neither. Words are the only victors. Only are words describing things remain. Their deeds will only be known in the way that the writer sets them down. All that remains is the city of words. Words are the only victors.

[Applause]

MG: Louise Dennys with Penguin Random House Canada reading from Salman Rushdie's upcoming novel - Victory City. That's our program for today. Stay tuned to Radio One for q - Mark Critch is on talking about season two of Son of a Critch. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current.

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Tuesday January 3, 2023 Full Transcript

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