Five Wives

Last updated
Five Wives
Five Wives.jpg
First edition
Author Joan Thomas
CountryCanada
LanguageEnglish
PublisherHarper Avenue
Publication date
September 3, 2019
Media typePrint (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages400
ISBN 978-1443458559
Preceded byThe Opening Sky 

Five Wives is a novel by Joan Thomas, published in 2019 by Harper Avenue. [1] Based on the real-life Operation Auca, in which five Christian missionaries were murdered when they attempted to contact the isolated Huaorani people in Ecuador, the novel centres on the perspective of the men's wives. [1]

Russell Smith of The Globe and Mail praised the novel, calling Thomas one of Canada's most underrated writers and ultimately concluding that the novel was comparable to the work of Alice Munro. [1]

The novel won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at the 2019 Governor General's Awards. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giller Prize</span> Canadian literary award

The Giller Prize, is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English the previous year, after an annual juried competition between publishers who submit entries. The prize was established in 1994 by Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch in honour of his late wife Doris Giller, a former literary editor at the Toronto Star, and is awarded in November of each year along with a cash reward with the winner being presented by the previous year's winning author.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian literature</span> Field of literature from Canada

Canadian literature is the literature of a multicultural country, written in languages including Canadian English, Canadian French, Indigenous languages, and many others such as Canadian Gaelic. Influences on Canadian writers are broad both geographically and historically, representing Canada's diversity in culture and region.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Gowdy</span> Canadian writer

Barbara Gowdy, CM is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. Born in Windsor, Ontario, she is the long-time partner of poet Christopher Dewdney and resides in Toronto.

The Amazon.ca First Novel Award, formerly the Books in Canada First Novel Award, is a Canadian literary award, co-presented by Amazon.ca and The Walrus to the best first novel in English published the previous year by a citizen or resident of Canada. It has been awarded since 1976.

Alice Ann Munro is a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Munro's work has been described as revolutionizing the architecture of short stories, especially in its tendency to move forward and backward in time. Her stories have been said to "embed more than announce, reveal more than parade."

Russell Claude Smith is a Canadian writer and newspaper columnist. Smith's novels and short stories are mostly set in Toronto, where he lives.

Marian Ruth Engel was a Canadian novelist and a founding member of the Writers' Union of Canada. Her most famous and controversial novel was Bear (1976), a tale of erotic love between an archivist and a bear.

<i>The Progress of Love</i>

The Progress of Love is a book of short stories by Alice Munro, published by McClelland and Stewart in 1986. It won the 1986 Governor General's Award for English Fiction, her third win of that award.

Susan Swan is a Canadian author, journalist, and professor. Susan Swan writes classic Canadian novels. Her fiction has been published in 20 countries and translated into 10 languages.

The Governor General's Award for English-language fiction is a Canadian literary award that annually recognizes one Canadian writer for a fiction book written in English. It is one of fourteen Governor General's Awards for Literary Merit, seven each for creators of English- and French-language books. The awards was created by the Canadian Authors Association in partnership with Lord Tweedsmuir in 1936. In 1959, the award became part of the Governor General's Awards program at the Canada Council for the Arts in 1959. The age requirement is 18 and up.

The Governor General's Award for English-language drama honours excellence in Canadian English-language playwriting. The award was created in 1981 when the Governor General's Award for English-language poetry or drama was divided.

Douglas Maitland Gibson,C.M. is a Canadian editor, publisher and writer. Best known as the former president and publisher of McClelland and Stewart, he was particularly noted for his professional relationships with many of Canada's most prominent and famous writers.

<i>Clara Callan</i> 2001 novel by Richard B. Wright

Clara Callan is a novel by Canadian writer Richard B. Wright, published in 2001. It is the story of a woman in her thirties living in Ontario during the 1930s and is written in epistolary form, utilizing letters and journal entries to tell the story. The protagonist, Clara, faces the struggles of being a single woman in a rural community in the early 20th century. The novel won the Governor General's Award in English fiction category, the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and the Trillium Book Award.

The Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award is a Canadian literary award, presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada to an established Canadian author to honour their body of work.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joan Thomas</span> Canadian novelist and book reviewer

Joan Thomas is a Canadian novelist and book reviewer from Winnipeg, Manitoba.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Esi Edugyan</span> Canadian novelist

Esi Edugyan is a Canadian novelist. She has twice won the Giller Prize, for her novels Half-Blood Blues and Washington Black.

Alix Hawley is a Canadian novelist and short-story writer. Her novel, All True Not a Lie In It, won the amazon.ca First Novel Award in 2015.

Michael Nathanson is a Canadian playwright and theatre director, who was a shortlisted nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language drama at the 2009 Governor General's Awards for his play Talk.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">François Gravel</span> Canadian writer from Quebec (born 1951)

François Gravel is a Canadian writer from Quebec. Most noted as an author of literature for children and young adults, he has also published a number of adult novels.

The following is a list of winners and nominees in French-language categories for the Trillium Book Award, a Canadian literary award presented by Ontario Creates to honour books published by writers resident in the province of Ontario. Separate awards have been presented for English-language literature since 1994; for the winners and nominees in English-language categories, see Trillium Book Award, English.

References