Clark Blaise

Last updated

Clark Blaise
Born (1940-04-10) April 10, 1940 (age 84)
Fargo, North Dakota
OccupationWriter
LanguageEnglish
NationalityCanadian-American
Alma materDenison University, University of Iowa
Notable awardsOfficer of the Order of Canada (2009)
Spouse Bharati Mukherjee (d. 2017)
ChildrenTwo

Clark Blaise, OC (born April 10, 1940) is a Canadian-American author. [1] He was a professor of creative writing at York University, and a writer of short fiction. In 2010, he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Contents

Early life and education

Blaise was born in Fargo, North Dakota, to Canadian parents who lived in the United States. [2] His mother, Anne Marion Vanstone, was English-Canadian and from Wawanesa, Manitoba, and his father, Leo Romeo Blaise, was of French-Canadian descent and was a furniture salesman and long-distance traveller. [3] Later on, his father would inspire the father characters in Blaise's fiction. [3] Growing up, his family moved constantly throughout the U.S. [2] [3] Before the eighth grade, he had already moved 30 times; ultimately, he attended 25 different schools. [3] From ages six to ten, he lived in Florida. [3] Throughout his childhood, Blaise also lived in Alabama, Georgia, communities in the American Midwest, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Winnipeg. [3] When Blaise was nineteen, his parents divorced. [3]

He attended Denison University and the University of Iowa, graduating in 1961 and 1964 respectively. [2] While at Denison University, he initially intended to pursue a major in geology but switched to English [4] after taking a writing course in which he studied under Paul Bennett. [3] While studying at Denison, he read extensively, began writing book reviews for the weekly newspaper, helped edit campus literary magazines, and received several campus writing awards. [3]

Career

In 1966, Blaise moved to Montreal and obtained Canadian citizenship. [2] While living in Canada, Blaise published his first two short fiction collections, A North American Education (1973) [5] and Tribal Justice (1974). [2]

Blaise was the director of the International Writing Program. While living in Montreal in the early 1970s, he taught creative writing at Concordia University; he also joined with authors Raymond Fraser, Hugh Hood, John Metcalf and Ray Smith to form the Montreal Story Tellers Fiction Performance Group. Blaise and Mukherjee collaborated on a memoir of experiences in India which was published in 1978.

In 1978, Blaise and Mukherjee moved to Toronto. Blaise became a professor of creative writing at York University, and wrote his first novel.

Mukherjee felt excluded in Canada, attributing it to racism and publishing an essay in Saturday Night . [6] [7] In 1980, the couple decided to return to the United States, [6] moving to San Francisco. [8] Both continued their literary careers, including a collaborative analysis of the 1985 bombing of Air India flight 182, known in India as the Kanishka bombing. [9] Blaise wrote two more novels and a number of short stories.

Personal life

He married writer Bharati Mukherjee in 1963. [10] They met as students at the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa [6] and have two sons. [7] Mukherjee died in 2017. [10] Mukherjee was remembered by the San Francisco Chronicle as "a professor emerita at UC Berkeley whose many works examined the Indian American immigrant experience," and married to Clark Blaise. [11] Blaise lives in New York. [12]

Honours and awards

In 2009, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada "for his contributions to Canadian letters as an author, essayist, teacher, and founder of the post-graduate program in creative writing at Concordia University". [13]

Bibliography

Short story collections

Novels

Memoirs

Non-fiction

Criticism

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynn Coady</span> Canadian novelist and journalist

Lynn Coady is a Canadian novelist and journalist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bharati Mukherjee</span> Indian-American writer

Bharati Mukherjee was an Indian American-Canadian writer and professor emerita in the department of English at the University of California, Berkeley. She was the author of a number of novels and short story collections, as well as works of nonfiction.

Hugh John Blagdon Hood, OC was a Canadian novelist, short story writer, essayist and university professor.

Mary di Michele is an Italian-Canadian poet and author. She was a professor at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec where she taught creative writing until 2015.

Mark Anthony Jarman is a Canadian fiction writer. Jarman's work includes the novel Salvage King, Ya!, the short story collection Knife Party at the Hotel Europa and the travel book Ireland's Eye.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nicolas Dickner</span> Canadian novelist and short story writer

Nicolas Dickner is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. He is best known for his 2005 novel Nikolski, which has won numerous literary awards in Canada both in its original French and translated English editions. His books have been translated into over 10 languages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yann Martel</span> Canadian novelist

Yann Martel, is a Canadian author who wrote the Man Booker Prize–winning novel Life of Pi, an international bestseller published in more than 50 territories. It has sold more than 12 million copies worldwide and spent more than a year on the bestseller lists of the New York Times and The Globe and Mail, among many other best-selling lists. Life of Pi was adapted for a movie directed by Ang Lee, garnering four Oscars including Best Director and winning the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taras Grescoe</span> Canadian non-fiction writer

Taras Grescoe is a Canadian non-fiction writer. His debut book, Sacré Blues, won the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction, Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction, and McAuslan First Book Prize. His fourth book, Bottomfeeder, won the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, awarded to the best work of non-fiction by a Canadian writer, in 2008, as well as the IACP Award for Literary Food Writing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ania Szado</span> Canadian writer

Ania Szado is a Canadian writer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Saleema Nawaz</span> Canadian author (born 1979)

Saleema Nawaz is a Canadian author whose works of short fiction have been published in literary journals such as Prairie Fire, PRISM International, Grain, The Dalhousie Review, and The New Quarterly. Nawaz was born in Ottawa, Ontario and later moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba in order to study English at the University of Manitoba, where she received her M.A. with a creative writing thesis. Her first complete collection of short fiction, entitled Mother Superior, was published by Freehand Books in 2008. Nawaz completed her first novel, Bone and Bread, published by Anansi Press in 2013, while residing in Montreal, Quebec.

Liam Durcan is a Canadian neurologist at the Montreal Neurological Hospital and an Assistant Professor at McGill University. He has published two novels and a collection of short stories: A Short Journey by Car, Garcia's Heart, and The Measure of Darkness. Born in Winnipeg, Durcan lived in Detroit briefly as a child, and has been at the Montreal Neurological Institute since 1994.

D. R. MacDonald is the pen name of David R. MacDonald, a Canadian-American writer who publishes novels and short stories. Born on Boularderie Island, Nova Scotia and raised in Ohio, he is a professor emeritus of creative writing at Stanford University. He still spend summers at the family homestead in Cape Breton Island, which he purchased in 1971, and his fiction is set in Cape Breton.

Matthew Fox is a Canadian author and magazine editor, known for his expertise in online publishing and social media.

<i>The Sorrow and the Terror</i> 1987 book by Clark Blaise and Bharati Mukherjee

The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy is a 1987 book by Clark Blaise and Bharati Mukherjee about the Air India Flight 182 bombing in 1985. It was published by Viking Books. Both authors are naturalized Canadians; Mukherjee is an Indo-Canadian Hindu who was born an Indian citizen while Blaise was born an American citizen.

Carrie Mac is a Canadian author of more than a dozen novels for Young Adults, both contemporary and speculative. Her latest work is the literary novel, LAST WINTER, due out from Random House Canada in early 2023. She also writes literary short fiction, and creative non-fiction. Some of her accolades include a CBC Creative Nonfiction Prize, the Sheila A. Egoff Children's Literature Prize, and the Arthur Ellis Award, as well as various other awards and recognitions.

Kevin Hardcastle is a Canadian fiction writer, whose debut short story collection Debris won the Trillium Book Award in 2016 and the ReLit Award for Short Fiction in 2017. The collection, published by Biblioasis in 2015, was also shortlisted for the Danuta Gleed Literary Award and the Kobo Emerging Writer Prize, and was named a best book of the year by Quill and Quire.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Waubgeshig Rice</span> Canadian Anishinaabe writer and journalist

Waubgeshig Isaac Rice is an Anishinaabe writer and journalist from the Wasauksing First Nation near Parry Sound, Ontario. Rice has been recognized for his work throughout Canada, including an appearance at Wordfest's 2018 Indigenous Voices Showcase in Calgary.

Morgan Murray is a Canadian writer, whose debut novel Dirty Birds was published in 2020. It was shortlisted for both the ReLit Award for fiction and the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour in 2021.

Dimitri Nasrallah is a Lebanese Canadian writer and academic. He is most noted for his 2022 novel Hotline, which was longlisted for the 2022 Giller Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fawn Parker</span> Fawn Parker is a Canadian writer.

Fawn Parker is a Canadian writer.

References

  1. ↑ J. R. Tim Struthers (2016). Clark Blaise: Essays on His Work. Guernica Editions. ISBN   978-1-77183-111-6.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 Grandy, Karen. "Clark Blaise" . Retrieved July 8, 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 "Clark Blaise - Biocritical Essay | Basic page". asc.ucalgary.ca. Archived from the original on May 13, 2016. Retrieved July 8, 2016.
  4. ↑ "Clark Blaise ~ interviewed by Derek Alger | Pif Magazine". www.pifmagazine.com. Retrieved July 8, 2016.
  5. ↑ "The Meagre Tarmac: Stories, by Clark Blaise". The Globe and Mail, STEVEN HAYWARD, June 17, 2011
  6. 1 2 3 "Clark Blaise and Bharati Mukherjee | Toronto Star". thestar.com. June 10, 2011. Retrieved July 8, 2016.
  7. 1 2 Barber, John (June 15, 2011). "Clark Blaise and Bharati Mukherjee: a shared literary journey". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved July 8, 2016.
  8. ↑ "The invisible Canadian | Quill and Quire". September 28, 2011. Retrieved July 8, 2016.
  9. ↑ Blaise, Clark; Mukherjee, Bharati (1987). Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy. Viking. ISBN   0670812048.
  10. 1 2 Frances Kai-Hwa Wang. Award-Winning Author Bharati Mukherjee Dead at 76. NBC News, Feb.08.2017
  11. ↑ McMurtrie, San Francisco Chronicle, John (February 1, 2017) [February 1, 2017]. "Bharati Mukherjee, chronicler of Indian American life, dies at 76". The San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. Retrieved July 24, 2024.
  12. ↑ "A Quarterly of Criticism and Review". Canadian Literature. Retrieved December 17, 2019.
  13. ↑ "Governor General Announces 57 New Appointments to the Order of Canada". Office of the Secretary to the Governor General. December 30, 2009. Retrieved December 30, 2009.
  14. ↑ The Canadian Press (February 9, 1973). "Modern Day Huck Finn". The Phoenix. Retrieved September 18, 2013.
  15. ↑ "Long read: How the 1985 Air India bombing could tie into the 2019 federal election in Canada". Georgia Straight, by Charlie Smith on November 12th, 2017
  16. ↑ Blaise, Clark. "A Novel of India's Coming of Age." The New York Times. April 18, 1999. Retrieved on November 27, 2014.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.