Discussing his work as an author and an activist
Lawrence Hill, creative writing professor at Guelph and author of The Book of Negroes and The Illegal, was recently awarded with the Order of Canada to recognize his contributions to Canadian culture as both a writer and as an activist. Last week The Ontarion had the opportunity to sit down with Hill and discuss what the award means to him.
Fiona Cashell: How does it feel to have won the Order of Canada?
Lawrence Hill: It feels like a pat on the back—like, “You’ve done a good job, keep going.” The people who were being inducted alongside [me] are just so amazing. Their accomplishments were so staggering, it’s a bit humbling to be amidst them.
F.C.: You’ve won a number of awards over the past few years. Is there one that is particularly close to your heart?
L.H.: It’s always amazing to be recognized in your own backyard, in the Order of Canada especially because it includes both your professional work and whatever kind of community or activist engagement you’ve had. It’s really a snapshot of a larger piece of your life than just a literary award; it’s meant to honour kind of a lifetime’s involvement. Canadians aren’t so good at patting their own shoulders or feeling good about who they are. It’s nice that we reward and honour Canadians every year who have done amazing things in the country. As for other awards, one of the greatest honours was the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize, which, being an international prize, allowed to break into international publishing. It was hugely influential in terms of my moving forward as a writer.
F.C.: Your latest book, The Illegal, came out about a year ago. Did you know at the time when you began writing that refugees and the migrant crisis in general would become so much a part of our daily conversations?
L.H.: No, I didn’t anticipate it would be on the front pages of all of our newspapers and influence the outcome of a federal election. The general thinking about refugee and immigration matters, and foreign affairs in general, is that they do not affect the outcome of elections, certainly outside of world wars and things like that. I’m delighted to be taken by surprise that it did become a central tenet of the voting decisions in the last federal election.
It is pathetic and sad that it would take a little boy drowning on a beach in the Middle East and a massive unbelievable desperation of Syrian refugees to kind of galvanize Canadians. I didn’t know that it would have this impact on Canadians, or on other people in the world, but I did know that these issues have been with us for a long time, certainly since the end of the Second World War. There has been refugee crisis after refugee crisis, and I have been following many of them over the decades. Although the Syrian refugee crisis wasn’t front and centre in my mind for the five years I was writing, other refugee crises were. The issues were just as pressing, but we hadn’t focused on that hotspot of Syria yet.
“Slavery existed in Canada and the British Empire until August 1, 1854. It took a long fight to eliminate slavery in Canada.”
F.C.: Your parents worked as civil rights activists. Would you be able to talk a bit about that?
L.H.: My parents were married interracially in Washington, DC in 1953; my father was African American and my mother is white. They spent their lives at the forefront of the human rights movement in Canada. My father created the Ontario Human Rights Commission and was its first director, and my mother worked with an anti-racist activist group in the early fifties, called the Toronto Committee for Human Rights. It was a coalition of blacks and Jewish people working together to advocate for the introduction of human rights legislation in Ontario because at the time, we had virtually none. They also created this wonderful group which still exists called the Ontario Black History Society. My father went on to become the ombudsman of Ontario. They both wrote books about black history in Canada and were really in the trenches of the black history and human rights movements in Ontario.
F.C.: When we think of civil rights movements in Canada, we default to thinking about what took place in the United States. What kind of issues were your parents facing in Canada?
L.H.: It’s so Canadian that we would default to thinking about the States. People from Dawson City to St. John’s and everywhere in between could tell you something about American slavery or American segregation. Many of those people could tell you nothing about the history of segregation and the civil rights movement in Canada. I think it is important to note that we do end up pointing a finger—and I say this playfully—at our “nasty American neighbours.” The danger there is that it stops us from addressing our own problems. We have a long history of racial oppression in this country too. Slavery existed in Canada and the British Empire until August 1, 1854. It took a long fight to eliminate slavery in Canada. There was vociferous racial segregation in place in Ontario right through the middle of the 20th century. We have a lot of history, but many people are happily unaware of it and would almost rather not talk about it. I guess one of my jobs as a novelist and professor is to provoke deeper thinking about these matters. Not to point fingers, attribute blame, or make people feel bad, but just to be aware of who we are and where we come from.
“…slow down, consider the humanity of those around them, and pause to meditate on the miraculous resilience of the human spirit.”
F.C.: Do you think the actions of your parents have shaped the topics you choose to write about?
L.H.: Absolutely. I’ve spent my life writing about topics of migration and alienation and people in the African diaspora, whether they’re in Africa, the States, Europe or Canada. My primary focus in life hasn’t been to become a human rights activist, but their passions have become mine. I sometimes joke that there are two types of people in this world: the children who throw off their parents’ values and reject everything they stood for, and those who embrace quite profoundly the values that their parents have. I definitely fall into the latter camp and it is reflected in my work.
F.C.: With issues regarding refugees, racial tensions, and other such issues constantly in the news, what do you hope people will draw from your novels to help interpret what is going on around them?
L.H.: I’d hope that people would slow down, consider the humanity of those around them, and pause to meditate on the miraculous resilience of the human spirit. We find it hard to empathize and to care. We find it hard to imagine the humanity of the people who are showing up in our country. I think the role of the artist, and certainly my role, is to provoke more empathy, deeper imagination, and a greater appreciation of the humanity of the people around us. Whether they are the enslaved peoples of the 18th century coming to Canada or they’re refugees today who are fleeing horror and genocide, desperate to build safe lives somewhere new, I hope I make people stop and ponder the humanity of our brothers and sisters on this planet.
Photo by Karen Tran.