Bilingual Being Book Launch - Quebec City

On Thursday, August 15, the Morrin Centre will host a special ImagiNation off-festival event with author Kathleen Saint-Onge. The Montreal Gazette has described her book, Bilingual Being, as a memoir that will “interest anyone who cares about language or the history and culture of Quebec. Saint‐Onge has other readers in mind, too: those who move through life ‘with odd snippets of memory and a sense of intimate strangeness, like a haunting.’ To them, above all, she offers a story that is haunting indeed.” A victim of childhood abuse, Saint-Onge describes the influence of her mother tongue in the formation of her identity, as well as the role her second language played in providing a psychological sanctuary. 

Originally from Quebec City, Kathleen Saint-Onge grew up in a French-speaking household and attended English-language schools. At her Morrin Centre book launch Saint-Onge will explain how this duality played an important part in her story, why English was the language in which she took refuge, and what the emotional gains and losses are of a life lived in two languages. 

Saint-Onge is a doctoral candidate in education at York University who is also a full-time language teacher in the greater Toronto area. She is particularly honored to launch her book in her hometown. Please join her at the Morrin Centre on Thursday, August 15 at 7:30 p.m. for her very public narration of a very private journey.