Modern Literature & Culture Research Centre & Gallery

MLC Research Associate Randy Boyagoda has just released the novel Beggar's Feast, published by Penguin Canada.  It is “a novel about family, pride, and ambition, about what it takes for one man to make something out of nothing, set on a gorgeous, troubled island caught between tradition and modernity.”

Dr. Boyagoda will be reading from his novel alongside the Libyan-British novelist Hisham Matar as part of Toronto’s Harbourfront Reading Series, on Wednesday April 27, and again with Matar at Montreal’s Pages Bookstore on Friday April 29. He is also scheduled to read at festivals over the next several months, including the Stephen Leacock Festival, the Vancouver International Writers’ Festival, and the Galle Literary Festival in Sri Lanka (where the Sri Lankan edition of the novel, published by Perera-Hussain, will be released). 

You can listen to Dr. Boyagoda's interview about the book on CBC’s “The Next Chapter, with Shelagh Rogers” on Monday May 2nd, at 1 PM, with a re-broadcast on Saturday May 7, at 4 PM. Podcasts and Sirius satellite shows are also available. He will also be on the CBC radio show “Ontario Today,” at 12 PM on Tuesday May 10.

Recent News

Sana Munir joins MLC

Sana Munir joins MLC

Sana is engaged in archival research and annotating articles related to the Telling COVID-19 Stories project.

Brenda Aleman joins MLC

Brenda Aleman joins MLC

Brenda assists the MLC Research Centre director and team with arts and research administration, while also supporting the MLC archive.

Angela Larosa joins MLC

Angela Larosa joins MLC

Angela assists with social media content, researching avant-garde women and issues of creative resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Jeanette LaPolla joins MLC

Jeanette LaPolla joins MLC

Jeanette provides research and support for the Lorna Stevens Collection digitizing and archiving WWI and WWII rare archival holdings.

The Great War in Literature and Visual Culture

MLC Themes

The Great War in Literature and Visual Culture

Amid the unprecedented social change of World War I, women renegotiated their identities by dramatically changing the way they engaged with the arts. But how did they do so? And how did everyday citizens engage with the war?
Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven

MLC Themes

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven

Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, considered by many to be the mother of Dada, was a daringly innovative poet and an early creator of junk sculpture. “The Baroness” was best known for her sexually charged, often controversial performances.
Modernism in the World

MLC Themes

Modernism in the World

Recent research has departed from the Euro-centric and national view of Modernism to include approaches and methods studying Modernism across national boundaries and across different art forms to include fashion, dance, performance, technology, and visual culture.
Lucy Maud Montgomery

MLC Themes

Lucy Maud Montgomery

L.M. Montgomery is perhaps Canada's most important literary export. She was prolific writer of over 500 short stories and poems, and twenty novels, including the beloved Anne of Green Gables.
Canadian Modernism

MLC Themes

Canadian Modernism

The works of numerous Canadian authors who lived during the modernist era may well constitute the most central and experimental articulation of Canadian modernism in prose, allowing authors to stage cross-cultural, controversial, and even conflicted identities.
Modernist Biography and Life Writing

MLC Themes

Modernist Biography and Life Writing

Life writing, including autobiographical accounts, diaries, letters and testimonials written or told by women and men whose political, literary or philosophical purposes are central to their lives, has become a standard tool for communication and the dissemination of information.