Michel Basilières
Michel Basilières | |
---|---|
Born | 1960 Montreal, Quebec |
Occupation | Novelist |
Language | English |
Genre | Fiction |
Years active | 2003-present |
Notable works | Black Bird |
Notable awards | Amazon.ca First Novel Award (2004) |
Michel Basilières (born 1960 in Montreal) is a Canadian writer, best known for his 2003 debut novel Black Bird.[1]
Background
Basilières, the son of a Québécois father and an English Canadian mother, grew up as an anglophone despite his French surname.[2] He studied creative writing at Concordia University, but dropped out before graduating, and spent much of his adult life working in bookstores in both Montreal and Toronto.[1]
Career
Black Bird was published in 2003 as part of Knopf Canada's New Faces of Fiction series of works by emerging writers.[3] A comic, magic realist take on the October Crisis of 1970,[3] the novel won the 2004 Books in Canada First Novel Award,[4] and was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour[5] and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Novel.[4]
Following his award win, Basilières was a freelance book reviewer for the Toronto Star, the National Post and The Globe and Mail, and taught creative writing at the University of Toronto.
His second novel, A Free Man, published in 2015,[6] was a ReLit Award finalist in 2016.
Awards
Year | Title | Award | Result | Ref. |
---|---|---|---|---|
2004 | Black Bird | Books in Canada First Novel Award | Winner | [7] |
Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Novel | Shortlist | [4] | ||
Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour | Shortlist | [5] | ||
2016 | A Free Man | ReLit Award for Novel | Shortlist |
Publications
- Black Bird. Vintage Books. 2003. ISBN 978-0-676-97528-4.
- A Free Man. a misFit book. 2015. ISBN 978-1-770-41233-0.
References
- ^ a b "An ambition fulfilled". Montreal Gazette, April 12, 2003.
- ^ "Alone between two solitudes". The Globe and Mail, May 5, 2003.
- ^ a b "The October Crisis you've never seen". Ottawa Citizen, March 27, 2003.
- ^ a b c "First Novel prize goes to October Crisis story". Kingston Whig-Standard, October 14, 2004.
- ^ a b "Leacock shortlisters". National Post, March 25, 2004.
- ^ "Allowing Oneself To be Deceived". National Post, May 9, 2015.
- ^ "Basilieres wins first novel award". The Telegram, October 17, 2004.
- v
- t
- e
- Ian McLachlan and Michael Ondaatje (1977)
- Oonah McFee (1978)
- Joan Barfoot (1979)
- Clark Blaise (1980)
- W. D. Valgardson (1981)
- Joy Kogawa (1982)
- W. P. Kinsella (1983)
- Heather Robertson (1984)
- Geoffrey Ursell (1985)
- Wayne Johnston (1986)
- Karen Lawrence (1987)
- Marion Quednau (1988)
- Rick Salutin (1989)
- Sandra Birdsell (1990)
- Nino Ricci (1991)
- Rohinton Mistry (1992)
- John Steffler (1993)
- Deborah Joy Corey (1994)
- Shyam Selvadurai (1995)
- Keath Fraser (1996)
- Anne Michaels (1997)
- Margaret Gibson (1998)
- André Alexis (1999)
- David Macfarlane and Alan R. Wilson (2000)
- Eva Stachniak (2001)
- Michael Redhill (2002)
- Mary Lawson (2003)
- Michel Basilières (2004)
- Colin McAdam (2005)
- Joseph Boyden (2006)
- Madeleine Thien (2007)
- Gil Adamson (2008)
- Joan Thomas (2009)
- Jessica Grant (2010)
- Eleanor Catton (2011)
- David Bezmozgis (2012)
- Anakana Schofield (2013)
- Wayne Grady (2014)
- Alix Hawley (2015)
- Mona Awad (2016)
- Katherena Vermette (2017)
- Michael Kaan (2018)
- Casey Plett (2019)
- Stéphane Larue (2020)
- Michelle Good (2021)
- Pik-Shuen Fung (2022)
- Jasmine Sealy (2023)