Alistair MacLeod
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alistair MacLeod born 1936 in North Battleford, Saskatchewan is a noted Canadian author and Professor of English at the University of Windsor.
His works are considered among the best Canada has produced in the twentieth century. MacLeod's writing career has been remarkable in earning him a critical reputation, just on the basis of two collections of short stories and a novel. His son Lewis MacLeod is a professor of English Literature at Trent University.
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[edit] Academic career
When MacLeod was ten his family moved to a farm in Dunvegan, Inverness County on Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Island. After completing high school, MacLeod attended teacher's college in Truro and then taught school. He studied at St. Francis Xavier University between 1957 and 1960 and graduated with a BA and B.Ed. He then went on to receive his MA in 1961 from the University of New Brunswick and his PhD in 1968 from the University of Notre Dame. A specialist in British literature of the nineteenth century, MacLeod taught English for three years at Indiana University before accepting a post in 1969 at the University of Windsor as professor of English and creative writing. During the summer, his family resides in Cape Breton, where he spends part of his time "writing in a cliff-top cabin looking west towards Prince Edward Island."
[edit] Literary career
MacLeod published fourteen short stories, collected in The Lost Salt Gift of Blood (1976) and As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories (1986) before publishing his first novel in 1999. No Great Mischief follows the lives of several generations of a family that emigrates from Scotland to Cape Breton Island, the setting of many of MacLeod's short stories. Written over the course of thirteen years, No Great Mischief was published to great critical acclaim and has been translated into a number of different languages. Nominated for all of Canada's major literary awards, the novel was awarded the Canadian Authors Association Award for Fiction, the Trillium Award, the Thomas Head Raddall Award, the Dartmouth Book & Writing Award for Fiction, the Atlantic Provinces Booksellers Choice Award, and the 2001 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. All of his published short stories, plus two new pieces, were collected in Island, published in 2000.
[edit] Fiction Bibliography
- As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories, New Canadian Library, 1986.
- The Lost Salt Gift of Blood, New Canadian Library, 1976.
- No Great Mischief, Random House of Canada, 1999.
- Island: The Collected Stories, Emblem Editions, 2000.
- To Every Thing There Is a Season: A Cape Breton Christmas Story, McClelland & Stewart, 2004.
[edit] External links
- Author Interview Robert Jarovi. (Downloadable Word file)
- National Film Board of Canada Documentary film Reading Alistair MacLeod .
