Naheed Nenshi is known for discussing urban issues — now he's ready to talk books on Canada Reads
The great Canadian book debate will air March 4-7
Former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi is championing the novel Denison Avenue by Christina Wong and Daniel Innes on Canada Reads 2024!
Passionate about cities and urban life, Nenshi is excited to share this story told in art and fiction about Toronto's changing areas of Chinatown and Kensington Market.
The great Canadian book debate will take place on March 4-7. This year, we are looking for one book to carry us forward.
The debates will be hosted by Ali Hassan and will be broadcast on CBC Radio One, CBC TV, CBC Gem, CBC Listen and on CBC Books. The debates will take place live at 10:05 a.m. ET. You can tune in live or catch a replay on the platform of your choice. Check out all the broadcast details here.
A passion for books about the immigrant experience
Nenshi was Calgary's mayor for three terms between 2010 and 2021. He was awarded the World Mayor Prize in 2014 and is recognized internationally as a voice on urban issues. He is a proud first-generation Canadian of Indian ancestry and of Ismaili Muslim faith, which instilled in him the ethic of "seva," which means "service to the community."
Before becoming mayor, Nenshi was Canada's first tenured professor of nonprofit management at the Bissett School of Business at Mount Royal University and worked in consulting.
Nenshi loves books about the immigrant experience, community, urban life and cities that test our biases and don't fall into tired tropes.
"The magnificent Denison Avenue will tell you a story you've never heard before — about people you think you know in your neighbourhood," said Nenshi in his 30-second pitch on CBC Radio's Commotion.
It will change you. It will change how you look at people on the bus and on the streets. It will change how you live your life.- Naheed Nenshi on why Denison Avenue should win Canada Reads 2024
"It will change you. It will change how you look at people on the bus and on the streets. It will change how you live your life. Christina Wong is gonna tear your heart out and stomp on it — and then hand it back to you a little bandaged, a little bruised, but filled with empathy and filled with hope," said Nenshi.
"And empathy and hope are what are going to carry us forward."
How reading builds better communities
As a child and university student, Nenshi was an avid reader, but as he began his professional life, he lost the habit.
"I have allowed screens to take over my life. I've allowed work to take over my life and I've lost that pleasure of reading," he told CBC Books in an interview. "And when I even read a book, it might be a nonfiction book or a business book or something that is related to the work that I was doing."
With Canada Reads, that's all been changing, with Nenshi making a conscious effort to come back to reading and bring others along with him.
In his preparation for the great Canadian book debate, he's noticed how stories, especially Denison Avenue, can make him a better community builder.
"I realized that it's so cliché, but reading is the only thing that transports you into someone else. And there are people in our communities and our neighbourhoods, there's people on the other side of the world who we have to understand better if we want to build a better world."
"So Denison Avenue, for example, tells us about seniors, immigrant seniors in our community. We see them every day and without giving too much away from the book, it tells us about people who, well, we might cross the street to avoid walking in our neighbourhoods, forgetting that they're actually human beings and they have a rich life."
That kind of empathy, you can only get it from books.- Naheed Nenshi
"And in the case of Denison Avenue, the protagonist, Cho Sum doesn't speak English very well and so it's easy to demean or belittle her ability to contribute. But one of the brilliant things about the book is that it's sort of an interior monologue. And when she's not talking to someone else, she is so eloquent, she is so articulate, but her poor English skills prevent people from seeing her as who she is. And that kind of empathy, you can only get it from books."
Where fiction and illustration collide
Set in Toronto's Chinatown and Kensington Market, Denison Avenue is a moving portrait of a city undergoing mass gentrification and a Chinese Canadian elder experiencing the existential challenges of getting old and being Asian in North America. Recently widowed, Wong Cho Sum takes long walks through the city, collecting bottles and cans and meeting people on her journeys in a bid to ease her grief.
Wong is a Toronto writer, playwright and multidisciplinary artist who also works in sound installation, audio documentaries and photography.
Innes is a multidisciplinary artist from Toronto. He works in painting, installation, graphic and textile design, illustration, sign painting and tattooing.
"[Chinatown/Kensington Market is] a neighborhood that I've pretty much grown up with," said Wong in an interview on The Next Chapter. "My parents and my grandparents, our family, we would just go there on Sundays and go for dim sum and go grocery shopping. So it's a place that's like home for me.
It's a place that's like home for me.- Christina Wong
"It's also where my family association is, the Wong Association, and it's also considered like another home where I would go and talk to the elders and learn things. So I felt like myself, in a sense, like I could learn more about my culture."
