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list price: $16.95
edition:Paperback
also available: eBook
category: Drama
published: Apr 2010
ISBN:9780887549113
publisher: Playwrights Canada Press

Pyaasa & Letters to My Grandma

by Anusree Roy, introduction by Thomas Morgan Jones

tagged: canadian, women authors
Description

Set in Calcutta, Pyaasa tells the story of Chaya, an eleven-year-old untouchable who dreams of nothing more than learning her times tables. When Chaya's mother begs a woman from a higher caste to give Chaya a job at a local tea stall, Chaya's journey from childhood to adulthood begins and ends over ten days. A moving and heartfelt play, Pyaasa illustrates with subtlety and nuanced truth the inequalities and injustices that persist through the Indian caste system.

In the haunting Letters to My Grandma, Malobee unearths letters detailing her grandmother's fight to survive the 1947 partition of India, which resonates with Malobee's own struggles to create a new life in present-day Toronto. A grand multi-generational tale of hatred, regret, love, and forgiveness, Letters to my Grandma weaves the remarkable stories of these two women together, inextricably linking their histories and delving into how the hatred bred between Hindus and Muslims in the Old World consumes families in Canada today.

About the Authors

Anusree Roy

Anusree is a Governor General’s Literary Award–nominated and four-time Dora Mavor Moore Award–winning writer and actor. For theatre, Anusree’s plays include Through the Eyes of God, Trident Moon, Little Pretty and The Exceptional, Sultans of the Street, Brothel # 9, Roshni, Letters to my Grandma, and Pyaasa. She is the recipient of the K.M. Hunter Artist Award, the RBC Emerging Artist Award, the Carol Bolt Award, and the Siminovitch Protégé Prize. She was a 2018 finalist for the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize (the largest and oldest playwriting prize for women writing for English-speaking theatre). She is also an adjunct professor of playwriting at the University of Toronto and a professor of creative writing, teaching advanced drama to M.F.A. students at the University of British Columbia.


Thomas Morgan Jones

Thomas has worked across Canada and internationally as a director, playwright, dramaturg, instructor, and movement coach. His productions have received eleven Dora Mavor Moore Awards and eight nominations; he received the 2011 Dora Mavor Moore Guthrie (Stratford Festival), and has been nominated for the Pauline McGibbon Award and twice for the John Hirsch Award (2008 & 2011). He is currently Artistic Director of Prairie Theatre Exchange.
Awards
  • Winner, Dora Mavor Moore Award—Outstanding New Play
Editorial Reviews

"Her script is direct and passionate, and her performance is spine-tinglingly alive and confident."

— NOW Magazine

"Letters to My Grandma is a courageous and honest portrayal of loneliness, regret, forgiveness, and the divide between immigrant youth and the loved ones they leave behind."

— Experience Toronto
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