{"id":5052,"date":"2014-01-24T23:31:07","date_gmt":"2014-01-25T04:31:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/library.ryerson.ca\/asianheritage\/?page_id=5052"},"modified":"2025-09-25T12:05:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T16:05:27","slug":"renee-sarojini-saklikar","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/authors\/renee-sarojini-saklikar\/","title":{"rendered":"Ren\u00e9e Sarojini Saklikar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Ren\u00e9e Sarojini Saklikar was born in India and moved with her family to Canada when she was a young child.  Her family lived in many parts of Canada.  Saklikar earned a B.A. in English literature and an LL.B. from the University of British Columbia in 1990.  In 2010 she graduated from Simon Fraser University’s The Writer’s Studio. Saklikar was the inaugural poet laureate of Surrey, B.C. She taught creative writing at Simon Fraser University and Vancouver Community College.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Poetry<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bramah and the Beggar Boy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gibsons, BC: blewointment, an imprint of Nightwood Editions, 2021.
Series: The Heart of This Journey Bears All Patterns<\/em> (THOT J BAP<\/em>)
e-book<\/a> available to members of the university community<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

One afternoon, in an old house in an abandoned village on the outskirts of Perimeter, in the place they call Pacifica, Bramah and the beggar boy find fragments of an ancient text in an oak box. Hunched over scraps of parchment and broken computer disks, they blow the dust off a cover, and so our story begins.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Poetry<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Brahma’s Discovery<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gibsons, BC: Nightwood Editions, 2026.
Series: The Heart of This Journey Bears All Patterns<\/em>\u00a0(THOT J BAP<\/em>) ; bk. 3
forthcoming April 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

In Bramah\u2019s Discovery<\/em>, the year is 2110 and Bramah\u2019s journey to discover the truth about her origins, and to find out more about her parents, continues. Along the way, this time-travelling locksmith rescues her friend Amahl the Beggar, trapped in the Eternal Game of Climate Chess; eludes an evil drug-lord; encounters two shape-shifting mythical beasts, Fanon and Gavroche; breaks free from captivity in Baghdad; and battles wits with a Paris collective of super naturals. Each challenge forces Bramah to discover truths about her own demi-goddess self and the price of idealism in the face of ecological and economic calamity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ten years in the making, Bramah\u2019s Discovery<\/em> weaves the devastation of climate change into speculative verse to create an epic family saga that is also a meditation on good and evil. Bramah\u2014brown, brave and beautiful\u2014is determined to conquer the odds and deal with what fate and chance throw in her path. Each twist and turn tests her ability to live up to the motto \u201cLet all evil die and the good endure.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Poetry<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Bramah’s Quest<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gibson’s, BC: blewointment, an imprint of Nightwood Editions, 2023.
Series: The Heart of This Journey Bears All Patterns (THOT J BAP)<\/em>; bk. 2
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Publisher’s Synopsis (From its website)<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This book-length poem features the time-travelling demigoddess Bramah, a locksmith and the saga\u2019s hero. In Bramah\u2019s Quest<\/em>, the year is 2087 and Bramah is back on a planet Earth ravaged by climate change and global inequality. Bramah is on a quest to find her people, including the little boy Raphael, last seen at the end of Bramah and the Beggar Boy<\/em> (2021). Hailed as \u201cbrilliant and masterful, timely\u201d (Kerry Gilbert), this long poem reclaims poetry forms such as blank verse, the sonnet, the ballad and the madrigal. Each page is a portal, connecting readers to the resistance of seed savers, craftspeople, scientists and orphans, all banded together to help save their world from eco-catastrophe and injustice.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Poetry<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Children of Air India: Un\/authorized Exhibits and Interjections<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Gibsons, B.C.: Nightwood Editions, 2013.
PS8637 .A52 C45 2013<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher’s Synopsis<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Children of Air India<\/em> is a series of elegiac sequences exploring the nature of individual loss, situated within public trauma.  This collections breaks new ground in its approach to the saga that is Canada\/Air India, an event and its aftermath that is both over-reported and under-represented in our national psyche.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Awards and Honours<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

2014 Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize<\/a> (BC Book Prizes) (Finalist)
2014 Canadian Authors Association Poetry Prize (Winner)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Poetry and Prose<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Listening to the Bees<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Mark L. Winston, and Ren\u00e9e Sarojini Saklikar.
Gibsons, BC: Nightwood Editions, 2018. [distributed by Harbour Publishing]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher’s Synopsis<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Listening to the Bees<\/em> is a collaborative exploration by two writers to illuminate the most profound human questions: Who are we? Who do we want to be in the world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the distinct but complementary lenses of science and poetry, Mark Winston and Ren\u00e9e Saklikar reflect on the tension of being an individual living in a society, and about the devastation wrought by overly intensive management of agricultural and urban habitats.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Anthology<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The Revolving City: 51 Poems and the Stories Behind Them<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Edited by Wayde Compton and Ren\u00e9e Sarojini Saklikar.
Vancouver: Anvil Press, 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Includes poems by Saklakar, Phinder Dulai, Mercedes Eng, Ray Hsu, Rahat Kurd, Sonnet L’Abb\u00e9, Fiona Tinwei Lam, Evelyn Lau, Fred Wah, Rita Wong, and Changming Yuan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Awards and Honours<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

2016 City of Vancouver Book Award (Finalist)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Links<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Publisher Anvil Press<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher Harbour Publishing<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publisher Nightwood Editions<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

thecanadaproject<\/a> is Saklikar’s lifelong poem chronicle<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ren\u00e9e Sarojini Saklikar was born in India and moved with her family to Canada when she was a young child.  Her family lived in many parts of Canada.  Saklikar earned a B.A. in English literature and an LL.B. from the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"parent":16,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-5052","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5052","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5052"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5052\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20754,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5052\/revisions\/20754"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/16"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/library.torontomu.ca\/asianheritage\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5052"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}