Famous Canadian Writers
Canadian Writers from All across the Country
Michael Ondaatje
Sri Lankan Born Canadian Writer of The English Patient
Writer, poet, fimmaker, editor, Ondaatje often blends or counterposes the factual and the imaginary, poetry and prose. His longer narrative works, often based on the unorthodox lives of real people, may contain documentary as well as fictional accounts. Ondaatje's imagery is characterized by its preoccupation with romantic exoticism and multiculturalism; its gravitation towards the bizarre, the exaggerated, and the unlikely; its fascination with the secret codes of violence in both personal and political life; and with its continued delving into the world of movies, jazz and friendship.
Margaret Atwood
The Writer of The Handmaid's Tale
Atwood is perhaps the most internationally famous Canadian writer living today. PERSONAL INFORMATION: Born November 18, 1939, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada; daughter of Carl Edmund (an entomologist) and Margaret Dorothy (Killam) Atwood; married Graeme Gibson (a writer); children: Jess (daughter). Education: University of Toronto, B.A., 1961; Radcliffe College, A.M., 1962; Harvard University, graduate study, 1962-63 and 1965-67. Politics: "William Morrisite." Religion: "Immanent Transcendentalist."Alice Munro
Master Short Story Writer
short story writer (b at Wingham, Ont. 10 July 1931). Munro's early years were spent in western Ontario. She met her first husband, James Munro, at the U of Western Ontario, and after 2 years of university she moved with him to Vancouver. In 1963 Alice helped establish Munro's Books, and in 1972 she returned to Ontario where she married Gerald Fremlin in 1976. Alice Munro was awarded the Gov Gen's Award for Dance of the Happy Shades (1968) and Who Do You Think You Are? (1978), which was also runner-up for the Booker Prize. She is also the recipient of the Canadian Booksellers Assn International Book Year Award for Lives of Girls and Women (1971), The Canada-Australia Literary Prize (1977), and the first winner of the Marian Engel Award (1986).
Carol Shields Rohinton Mistry Stephen Leacock Alistair MacLeod Yann Martel
Other Famous Canadian Writers
Lucy Maud Montgomery Mordecai Richler
Mavis Gallant
Farley Mowat
Morley Callaghan