Adrian De Leon in conversation with Rowena Pedrena

Award-winning writer, poet, and historian Adrian De Leon joins Hay Festival Forum Dallas with his new memoir, Notes from a Wayward Son, a deeply personal account of family, migration, and the complicated relationship between fathers and sons. Born in Manila and raised in Scarborough, Toronto, De Leon traces his family’s journey from the Philippines to Canada and his relationship with his father, a former military officer, martial arts master, and religious leader.

Moderated by Rowena Pedrena, Assistant Professor of Film and Media Production at The University of Texas at Dallas, the conversation will explore immigration, assimilation, intergenerational conflict, masculinity, and the legacies of empire that shape individual and family lives. Moving between memoir and history, De Leon brings together the personal and political to ask what we inherit from our families, what we leave behind, and what it means to find our own way home.