Montreal photographer Gabriel Safdie launches Faces of China

Montreal author and photographer Gabriel Safdie will launch Faces of China, a book of portraits drawn from some 40 years of travel in China, at two events this month, in Montreal on Nov. 22 and in Stanstead, Que., on Nov. 27, his publicist said in a release.

The Montreal launch runs from 2 to 4 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 22, at Paragraphe Bookstore, 2220 McGill College Ave. The Stanstead event follows from 1 to 5 p.m. on Friday, Nov. 27, at the Haskell Free Library and Opera House, 1 Church St. Both include a slide show and a question-and-answer session, and RSVPs are taken through the author’s website.

The new book follows Affair with China, Safdie’s illustrated memoir, which he launched in April at Montreal’s Blue Metropolis International Literary Festival, where he appeared in conversation with writer Charlie Foran, the release said. He also launched that book at the Haskell in May.

Where the memoir traced China’s transformation from the 1980s to the 2020s, the new collection turns to the people who lived through it. The portraits range from the industrial cities of the country’s east coast to remote, thinly populated parts of Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia.

Safdie said the collection shows people “from all corners of China, its minorities, social classes, from the youngest to the oldest,” photographed in their own homes and workplaces.

Born in Jerusalem, Safdie moved to Montreal at 13 and studied at McGill University, the University of British Columbia, the University of London and the Sorbonne in Paris.

A former literature teacher and editor, he later ran his family’s Montreal textile company, Safdie & Co., work that took him to China regularly for close to half a century and often doubled as a photography trip. He has presented eight major photo exhibitions in China, according to the release.

The Stanstead venue sits on the Canada-U.S. border, which the release described as a fitting setting for a celebration of photography, literature and cultural exchange.

The launches add to a busy month for Montreal authors. Novelist Russell Brooks is launching a Barbados-set spy thriller on Nov. 29.

The full announcement is published in our Press Releases section: Gabriel Safdie Launches Faces of China in Montreal and the Eastern Townships.

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