JAMES MASKALYK IN CONVERSATION WITH AVRIL BENOÎT
How does an emergency room in downtown Toronto compare to one in the contested border town of Abyei, Sudan? To celebrate the launch of Six Months in Sudan:  A Young Doctor in a War-Torn Village (Doubleday Canada), James Maskalyk, will discuss his eye-opening first tour of duty for Médecins Sans Frontières  / Doctors Without Borders (MSF/DWB) with veteran journalist and Director of Communications for MSF/DWB, Avril Benoît. A PowerPoint presentation will punctuate their conversation. Marc Glassman, Executive Director of This is Not A Reading Series and Proprietor of Pages Books & Magazines will host.

– a special This Is Not A Reading Series event presented by Pages Books & Magazines and Random House Canada.

Gladstone Hotel Ballroom, 1214 Queen Street West, Toronto.
Sun Apr 19; 5pm (Doors 4pm) PWYC. All cover proceeds will go to MSF/DWB

SIX MONTHS IN SUDAN: "People are hungry to be brought closer to the world, even its hard parts. I went to Sudan, and am writing about it again, because I believe that which separates action from inaction is the same thing that separates me from my friends. It is not indifference. It is distance. May it fall away."

James Maskalyk set out for the contested border town of Abyei, Sudan, in 2007 as Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders/MSF) newest medical doctor in the field. Equipped with his experience as an emergency physician in a downtown hospital and his desire to understand the hardest parts of the world, Maskalyk’s days were spent treating malnourished children, fending off a measles epidemic, and staying out of the soldiers’ way. Worn raw in the struggle to meet overwhelming needs with inadequate resources, he returned home six months later more affected by the experience, the people, and the place, than he had anticipated.

Six Months in Sudan: A Young Doctor In a War-Torn Village began as a blog that Maskalyk wrote from his hut in Sudan in an attempt to bring his family and friends closer to his hot, hot days. It is a story about humans: the people of Abyei who suffer its hardship because it is their home, and the doctors, nurses, and countless volunteers who leave their homes with the tools to make another’s easier to endure. With great hope and insight, Maskalyk illuminates a distant place - its heat, its people, its poverty, its war - to inspire possibilities for action.

"Some of the work in repairing the world is grim, but most of it is not. Hope not only meets despair in equal measure, it drowns it."

“Maskalyk's soft prose is beautiful and invites with the right intimate details. He offers a rare window on the inner life of an aid worker, on what it means to be a humanitarian around the hard edges of war, and on the certain drive to go on. Why? Because in his words, `hope not only meets despair in equal measure, it drowns it.’”
— James Orbinski, author of An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-First Century

“This journey is beautifully told in sharp beats and lyrical notes. It is the voyage of a young doctor into a hard world and deep within his own heart.”
— Vincent Lam, author of Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures

“Six Months in Sudan is a wrenchingly heartbreaking account of distant agonies almost too pointed to grasp. Learning about Maskalyk's work there is stirring, but the real miracle is this book paints a picture so precisely and vividly that it becomes impossible to look away. This is Maskalyk’s accomplishment, and his gift to the Sudanese and to us. The shame of our indifference retreats before his exhortation: ‘learn, and understand,’ and perhaps a more bearable future becomes possible for all of us.”
— Kevin Patterson, author of Consumption

“This is an extraordinary book, a piercingly authentic account of the fear, confusion and hope of a young doctor newly deployed to a humanitarian crisis wrapped around by a war. James Maskalyk's commitment to survival – his own as well as his patients' - illuminates this account of doctoring in the sort of desperate place where it couldn't matter more.”
— Jonathan Kaplan, author of The Dressing Station: A Surgeon’s Chronicle of War and Medicine

“In Six Months in Sudan, James Maskalyk tells of his extraordinary experiences working as a doctor for MSF, without a trace of vanity or self-congratulation. His book serves as a salutary reminder of what it means to be an excellent doctor, and a brave man. For anyone who is interested in a career in medicine, or in courage, this is a book to read.”
— Gabriel Weston, author of Direct Red: A Surgeon's View of Her Life-Or-Death Profession

JAMES MASKALYK practices emergency medicine and is an Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine. He has been characterized as being ‘part explorer, part missionary,’ traveling and working in countries such as Chile, Cambodia, Bolivia, Zambia and Zimbabwe and most recently Sudan. While in Sudan, Maskalyk began blogging on the Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders website, and his frank and electric commentary had a strong reaction from readers across Canada. These blogs provide the basis for Maskalyk’s first book, Six Months in Sudan: A Young Doctor in a War-Torn Village


AVRIL BENOÎT is Director of Communications for Médecins Sans Frontières / Doctors Without Borders in Canada. She joined the medical humanitarian organization in 2006 after 20 years in radio, television and print journalism. In 2004-2005 she was a Canadian Journalism Fellow at the University of Toronto with a research interest in human rights, global governance and overseas development assistance. She is working toward an MBA in Community Economic Development and is member of MSF's international working group on transparency and accountability.

MEDIA CONTACTS:
James Maskalyk: Frances Bedford, fbedford@randomhouse.com,  (416) 957-1565
This is Not A Reading Series: Chris Reed, tinars@pagesbooks.ca , (416) 598-1447 x 221