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Randy Boyagoda: My Flannery O'Connor Problem, and Yours

Being a Catholic Novelist in 2018

Date of Lecture: April 23, 2018

Randy BoyagodaAbout the Speaker: Professor, writer and critic, Randy Boyagoda is principal and vice-president of the University of St. Michael’s College in the University of Toronto, where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts, and Letters, and teaches in the Christianity and Culture program. He has published two novels, "Governor of the Northern Province" and "Beggar's Feast"; a biography of Richard John Neuhaus; and a scholarly monograph.

About the Talk: Boyagoda discuss the challenges of trying to write religiously serious fiction today, when the terms for doing so are often overdetermined by the outsized influence and popularity of writers like Flannery O’Connor and Marilynne Robinson. He then reads from his forthcoming novel, "Original Prin."

His talk is one of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity.