18. Author! Author!

Five Christian missionaries are killed, leaving young wives and children alone in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Governor-General’s award-winning fiction author Joan Thomas asks what combination of faith, magical thinking, and naïveté inspired these real-life couples to set out on a dangerous mission to convert an Indigenous tribe. With award-winning novelist Jane Urquhart, she explores their deep-seated belief in their mission, at the same time illuminating the wives’ intelligence and humanity on top of their extreme ideology. We may judge them, but how will the future judge our society and its current ways of thinking about and acting towards Indigenous peoples?

Author Patrons: Gillian Graham and Pat MacKay

In celebration of the Governor General’s Literary Awards

3:30 – 4:15 pm ET

Donations gratefully accepted