APF Canada, with the co-operation of the Japan Foundation, Toronto, is pleased to invite you to join us for our first in-person Kakehashi Alumni Network event as we celebrate the Canadian release of Catfish Rolling, the highly acclaimed debut novel from Japanese Canadian author and Kakehashi alumna Clara Kumagai.
The event will feature a reading and moderated Q&A in which Clara will discuss her novel, process, inspirations, and much more. The discussion will be moderated by Toronto-based author Rui Umezawa. Copies of Catfish Rolling will be available for purchase and signing at the event.
This is an open event. All Kakehashi Project Alumni and members of the public are welcome to attend. Advance registration is required.
This event is made possible through the kind co-operation of the Japan Foundation, Toronto.
Clara Kumagai is from Canada, Japan, and Ireland. Her fiction and nonfiction for children and adults has been published in The Stinging Fly, Irish Times, and Kyoto Journal among others. Her novel Catfish Rolling was described by The Guardian as “an outstanding debut” and selected as one of the CBC’s 25 Canadian YA Books to Read in 2023. Clara is a recipient of a We Need Diverse Books Mentorship and a finalist for the 2020 Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Writers Award. She is an alumna of the 2015-16 Kakehashi Project and recently relocated to Ireland after five years living and working in Japan.
Toronto writer Rui Umezawa’s books include The Truth About Death and Dying, shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Prize for Best First Book (Canada & the Caribbean), and Strange Light Afar; Tales of the Supernatural from Old Japan, chosen as one of CBC’s best books of 2015. His essays and short fiction have appeared in the Globe and Mail, Toronto Star, and Canadian Notes and Queries, among others. As a storyteller, he has recounted traditional and original tales in front of live audiences with Katari Japanese Storytellers and in collaborations with the acclaimed Nagata Shachu taiko (drum) ensemble.
