Solo Feature: Code Noir
Event Details
Here is groundbreaking, dazzling debut fiction from one of Canada’s most exciting and admired writers. Canisia Lubrin’s debut fiction is that rare
Event Details
Here is groundbreaking, dazzling debut fiction from one of Canada’s most exciting and admired writers.
Canisia Lubrin’s debut fiction is that rare work of art—a brilliant, startlingly original book that combines immense literary and political force. Its structure is deceptively simple: it departs from the infamous real-life “Code Noir,” a set of historical decrees originally passed in 1685 by King Louis XIV of France defining the conditions of slavery in the French colonial empire. The original Code had fifty-nine articles; Code Noir has fifty-nine linked fictions—vivid, unforgettable, multi-layered fragments filled with globe-wise characters who desire to live beyond the ruins of the past.
Ranging in style from contemporary realism to dystopia, from futuristic fantasy to historical fiction, this inventive, shape-shifting braid of stories exists far beyond the enclosures of official decrees. This is a timely, daring, virtuosic book by a young literary star. The stories are accompanied by black-and-white drawings—one at the start of each fiction—by acclaimed visual artist Torkwase Dyson.
Speakers for this event
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Alyanna Denise Chua
Alyanna Denise Chua
Moderator
Alyanna Denise Chua is a Toronto-based writer and journalist whose work has appeared in the Toronto Star, Toronto Life and Zoomer, among others. She currently serves as the assistant editor at Maclean’s, where she oversees the magazine’s back-of-book section, curating stories on arts, immigration and housing from across Canada.
Moderator
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Canisia Lubrin
Canisia Lubrin
Canisia Lubrin is a writer, editor and teacher, author of five books, including The Dyzgraphxst and The World After Rain (M&S, 2025). Her work has received a 2021 Windham-Campbell Prize, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature and Griffin Poetry Prize, among others. Lubrin has held fellowships at the Banff Centre, Civitella Ranieri, Literature Colloquium, and several universities. She is Asst. Professor and coordinator of the University of Guelph Creative Writing MFA in the School of English & Theatre Studies, and poetry editor at McClelland & Stewart. Code Noir (Knopf, 2024) her fiction debut, contains 59 drawings by acclaimed visual artist, Torkwase Dyson.
Books
Code Noir
AuthorCanisia Lubrin
Partners
Maclean's Magazine
Program Presenting Sponsor
Penguin Random House Canada
Accessibility Sponsor
