Author Maria Reva in Corner Brook | Camber Arts
Arts
Literary Arts
Booker-nominee Maria Reva in conversation with Shelly Kawaja, featuring music by Snizhana Dovzhenko.
Join us for a fantastic evening with Booker Prize nominee Maria Reva, as she discusses her award-winning, bestselling first novel, ENDLING, with novelist Shelly Kawaja.
A darkly comic novel, ENDLING draws on Reva’s own experiences as a Ukrainian expat tracking her family’s delicate dance of survival behind enemy lines. As fiction and reality collide on the page, she probes the hard truths of war: What stories must we tell ourselves to survive? Once shattered, can our sense of normalcy and security ever be restored?
Called “startling and ambitious” by the New York Times, and “brilliant and heartstopping” by the LA Times, ENDLING explores survival, love, and the impact of war.
This is going to be an unforgettable night, and a real treat for Corner Brook.
Featuring music by Snizhana Dovzhenko.
Thursday, June 11 at Camber Arts - 110 Humber Road, in Corner Brook.
Books will be available for sale; cash bar.
Tickets: $15. Seats are limited! Reserve yours today.
This event is supported and subsidized by the Canada Council for the Arts Public Outreach Program. We’re grateful to our partners: Camber Arts in Corner Brook, and Writers NL.
**This event will feature ASL interpretation
MARIA REVA
was born in Ukraine and grew up in Canada. Her fiction has appeared in
The Atlantic, McSweeney's, The Best American Short Stories
, and elsewhere, earning a National Magazine Award. Her first book, the short story collection
Good Citizens Need Not Fear
, was shortlisted for the Writers Trust Fiction Award - her first novel,
Endling
, won that same prize in 2025. Currently nominated for the Amazon First Novel award, she also works as an opera librettist.
SHELLY KAWAJA
is the author of
The Raw Light of Morning,
winner of the 2022 BMO Winterset Prize. Her work has appeared in
Horseshoe Literary Magazine, The Humber Literary Review, The Dalhousie Review,
and
PACE
. She was longlisted for the Bridge Prize, the Writer’s Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Fresh Fish Award, and won the GritLIT short fiction contest. Shelly is the Nonfiction Reviews Editor for The Artisanal Writer, and a graduate of both The Humber School for Writers, and Memorial University of Newfoundland. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from UBC. She lives in Corner Brook with her family.
About ENDLING:
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2025 BOOKER PRIZE • WINNER OF THE 2025 ATWOOD GIBSON WRITERS' TRUST FICTION PRIZE • FINALIST FOR THE 2025 GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD FOR FICTION
Set in Ukraine, an eccentric scientist breeding rare snails crosses paths with sisters posing as members of the marriage industry to find their activist mother. As Russia invades, they embark on a wild journey with kidnapped bachelors and a last-of-its-kind snail. This darkly comic novel explores survival, love, and the impact of war...
Ukraine, 2022. Yeva is a maverick scientist who scours the country’s forests, trying and failing to breed rare snails. To fund her work, she entertains Westerners who come to Ukraine on guided romance tours believing they’ll find docile wives. Nastia and Solomiya are also entangled in the booming marriage industry, posing as a hopeful bride and her translator. Together, the three women embark on the journey of a lifetime with a truckful of kidnapped bachelors and a last-of-his-kind snail—that is, until Russia invades.
A darkly comic novel,
Endling
draws on Reva’s own experiences as a Ukrainian expat tracking her family’s delicate dance of survival behind enemy lines. As fiction and reality collide on the page, she probes the hard truths of war: What stories must we tell ourselves to survive? Once shattered, can our sense of normalcy and security ever be restored?
Endling
is a metafictional tour de force weaving love, loss, humor, and devastation in a story only this author can tell.
SNIZHANA DOVZHENKO
is a Ukrainian singer and educator based in Corner Brook, NL. With a Master’s degree in Musical Art, she brings warmth and authenticity to every performance. Snizhana shares Ukrainian culture through music, blending traditional and contemporary songs, and actively contributes to the local multicultural and Ukrainian community.
Information Source: Riddle Fence | eventbrite