Gurjinder Basran

Gurjinder Basran (* 1972 in United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ) is a Canadian author , whose parents are from the Indian Punjab originating Sikhs are, and for her first novel with autobiographical elements, Everything Was Good-Bye (Mother Tongue Publishing, 2010 ) in 2011 to the BC Book Prizes belonging Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize won.

Life

Gurjinder Basran was born in England in 1972 as the daughter of a Sikh family from the Punjab. A little later the family moved to Canada. Her father died when she was a toddler. The mother, who could neither speak nor write English, raised her five sisters and she alone. Before the late 1970s the family moved to live with relatives in Delta , British Columbia , Canada , where Gurjinder grew up and lives as part of the small Indian community. She experienced the racism against ethnic minorities in Canada, which was still rampant in the 1970s, at least in its last foothills. Due to the small size of their congregation, their members were more or less assimilated into Canadian society, which made them feel a lost identity. She expressed this thought in her diaries, which she kept since early youth. Always fond of literature, she described Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë early on as one of her favorite books, so she initially decided on a different educational path.

After successfully attending high school, she enrolled at Kwantlen Polytechnic University , where she pursued a degree in fashion design . While trying to graduate, she met and fell in love with a man from South Asia whom she married shortly afterwards. The economic challenges faced by a young married couple caused them to break off their studies in order to be able to secure their financial livelihood together with various jobs. After giving birth and raising two sons, Gurjinder Basran realized in 2003 that she wanted to revive her literary ambitions. But it wasn't until 2006 that she enrolled in the two-year creative writing program at Simon Fraser University . In 2009, she attended the Banff Center for Arts to make her dream of writing a reality while working during the day and attending classes in the evening. Thanks to the help of her entire family, she was able to cope with the double burden. In October 2010, the small publisher Mother Tongue Publishing agreed to publish their first novel, Everything Was Good-bye .

The novel is a fictional portrait of his heroine Meena , a young South Indian woman who struggles with the problems of a traditional Indian household while growing up in British Columbia. Because the work is written from a first-person perspective, it makes it easier to identify with its protagonist, who is torn between liberalism in Canada and Indian conservatism. These two different value systems come into play as Meena tries to meet her family's expectations on the one hand and find her own path to happiness on the other. The author touched on the expected breaking of taboos : arranged weddings versus love marriages, cross- ethnic marriages, the achievement of an academic degree for women and the pursuit of prosperity.

The book was positively received by Canadian literary critics and the press as an expression of the migration literature there : "The tale is significant for immigrants & first generation children who are breaking free from their parents' traditional ways." Journalists in their culture compared them with other South Indian authors, such as Jhumpa Lahiri , Anita Rau Badami or Monica Ali .

Everything Was Good-Bye could then in 2011 to the BC Book Prizes belonging Prize Ethel Wilson Fiction win. In 2011, Penguin Books Canada acquired the paperback exploitation rights for the work. Filmmakers approached Gurjinder Basran to acquire the film rights because of the subject, but so far the writer has been unsure whether she should allow an adaptation because she feared interference with the core of the story. The work was also nominated for the Readers' Choice contest of the Scotiabank Giller Prize , which was decided in August 2011.

She is currently working as writer-in-residence at her old university, Kwantlen Polytechnic University, where she in turn leads courses in creative writing.

According to her own words, writing means self-realization or, as Betsy Warland puts it : “The page is my homeland.” - “The page is my homeland.” Basran describes her persistence as her own outstanding quality, without which she made her way in Canada when the first female writer would hardly have left the circle of the Sikhs. Her own family and friends mean everything to her, and she would continue to have a passion for fashion.

plant

• Everything was good-bye. Mother Tongue Publ., Salt Spring Island BC 2010 ISBN 978-1-896949-07-9 ; again: Penguin Books Canada, Vancouver 2011

Awards

• 2011: Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize for Everything Was Good-Bye
• 2011: Shortlist - Scotiabank Giller Prize for Everything Was Good-Bye

Web links

• http://www.gurjinderbasran.ca/
• Jyoti Sahota: The Art of Storytelling: Gurjinder Basran. In: Darpan Magazine. December 2010. Retrieved April 1, 2012.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://www.bcbookprizes.ca/winners/2011#fiction
2. ↑ Gurjinder Basran: Everything was Good-bye in: CBC / Radio-Canada . April 17, 2011. Retrieved April 1, 2012.
3. ^ Collection of press links to Everything Was Good-bye on www.mothertonguepublishing.com ( Memento from July 28, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
4. ↑ ^{a b} Jyoti Sahota: The Art of Storytelling: Gurjinder Basran. In: Darpan Magazine. December 2010. Retrieved April 1, 2012.
5. ^ HJ Kirchhoff: New in paperback: A guide to the latest releases.  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: The Globe and Mail . March 30, 2012. Retrieved April 1, 2012.  
6. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from January 9, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
7. ^ RECAP: Wine & Cheese with Gurjinder Basran . March 29, 2012. Retrieved April 1, 2012.
8. ↑ www.penguin.ca ( Memento of the original from March 25, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ http://www.cbc.ca/books/scotiabankgillerprize/nominees-p1/
10. ↑ Gurjinder Basran's, “Everything Was Good-bye” is a potential nominee for the Scotiabank Giller Award. In: Darpan Magazine. August 2011.
11. ^ Sarah Schuchard: Gurjinder Basran talks writing and the Indo-Canadian experience. In: The Runner . February 23, 2012. Retrieved April 1, 2012.
12. ↑ Interview with www.bookclubbuddy.com ( Memento of the original from July 6, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . September 2010. Retrieved April 1, 2012. 
13. ↑ Christina Decarie: Review: Everything Was Good-Bye by Gurjinder Basran. In: Quill & Quire . November 2010. Retrieved July 8, 2012.