Wayson Choy on his novel All That Matters and the Immigrant Experience in Canada
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Wayson Choy was born in\\xa0Vancouver\\xa0in 1939. He spent his childhood in the city\'s Chinatown and subsequently attended the University of British Columbia where he studied creative writing.\\xa0He moved to\\xa0Toronto\\xa0in 1962, and taught at\\xa0Humber College\\xa0from 1967 to 2004. His novel\\xa0The Jade Peony\\xa0(1995) won the\\xa0Trillium Book Award\\xa0and the\\xa0City of Vancouver Book Award. His novel\\xa0All That Matters, was published in 2004.\\xa0
I interviewed him about it some years later in Ottawa. Our conversation was among the first I recorded for the Biblio File. During it we talk about a range of topics, including the immigrant experience, conflicting cultural values, the language of the heart, tradition, butterflies, grandmothers, the colonial system, "the other," wisdom and storytelling, extended families, television, ancestors, elders and sons, obedience, ghosts, short leaders and actors, community, doing the right thing, luck, important things being invisible, internalized oppressions, banquet tables, and bananas.\\xa0
Regrettably our conversation cuts off at about the 33 minute mark, but I nonetheless wanted to post it to mark Wayson\'s passing. He died today, April 29th, 2019 at the age of 80. RIP.\\xa0
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