Joan Barfoot

Last updated

Joan Louise Barfoot (born May 17, 1946) is a Canadian novelist. She has published 11 novels, including Luck (2005), which was a nominee for the 2005 Scotiabank Giller Prize, and Critical Injuries (2001), which was longlisted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize. Her latest novel, Exit Lines, was published in 2009.

Contents

Life and career

Joan Barfoot was born on May 17, 1946, in Owen Sound, Ontario, and graduated with a degree in English from the University of Western Ontario in 1969. [1] She worked as a reporter and editor for various newspapers in Ontario including the Windsor Star , the Toronto Sun and the London Free Press . [2] As a child, while she and her mother watched a squirrel in their back yard from their kitchen, her mother told Barfoot to tell her the squirrel's story and she'd write it down. Barfoot doesn't remember the story but remembers her delight when her mother read the story back to her and the power of creating it.[ citation needed ] Barfoot was also encouraged to write by a teacher who told Barfoot she wrote well and to consider some word-related career. In addition to writing Barfoot occasionally teaches creative writing classes though she believes writing ought to be an entirely private pleasure and a puzzle. [3] She lives in London, Ontario.

In 1978, her novel Abra (published as Gaining Ground in the England) won the Books in Canada First Novel Award (now the Amazon.ca First Novel Award). The narrator "leaves husband and family to go live on her own in a bush farm," as Dave Godfrey outlines in his book review in Books in Canada. [4] As Patricia Craig describes her in The Times Literary Supplement in 1980, Abra "chooses...without obvious motivation, to cut herself off from all the social props supposed to enrich a woman's daily existence...." [5] The "absconding mother" figure is an "assertion of autonomy" rather than a "plea for understanding", Craig observes.

In 1986, her second novel, Dancing in the Dark (1982), became a film of the same name, starring Martha Henry. It won three Genie Awards, including Best Art Direction, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role. Dancing in the Dark is a novel about the reflection of a criminally insane woman who is serving time in prison for the murder of her unfaithful husband. She explains her reasoning for the murder throughout the novel while looking for psychological freedom.[ citation needed ]

Barfoot's work has been compared internationally with that of Anne Tyler, Carol Shields, Margaret Drabble, Fay Weldon and Margaret Atwood. [6]

In 1992, she won the Marian Engel Award, presented each year by the Writers' Trust of Canada to a female Canadian novelist who is in the middle of her career.

Critical commentary

In 2005, the Giller jury committee, describing Luck, wrote that "Joan Barfoot is at the peak of her powers with this splendidly realized tragicomedy about a household in the wake of an unexpected death. With its note-perfect narration, mordant wit and wonderfully neurotic cast of characters, Luck shows how death can reveal life in all its absurdity and complexity. This scintillating comedy of manners is also a profound meditation on fate, love, and artifice." [7]

Prizes and honours

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<i>The Time in Between</i> 2005 novel by David Bergen

The Time in Between is a novel by Canadian author David Bergen. It deals with a man, who mysteriously returns to Vietnam, where he had been a soldier earlier in his life, followed by his children, who also go to Vietnam to search for him. The novel was the recipient of the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award in 2005.

<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.

Bonnie Burnard was a Canadian short story writer and novelist, best known for her 1999 novel, A Good House, which won the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lawrence Hill</span> Canadian novelist, essayist, and memoirist (born 1957)

Lawrence Hill is a Canadian novelist, essayist, and memoirist. He is known for his 2007 novel The Book of Negroes, inspired by the Black Loyalists given freedom and resettled in Nova Scotia by the British after the American Revolutionary War, and his 2001 memoir Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada. The Book of Negroes was adapted for a TV mini-series produced in 2015. He was selected in 2013 for the Massey Lectures: he drew from his non-fiction book Blood: The Stuff of Life, published that year. His ten books include other non-fiction and fictional works, and some have been translated into other languages and published in numerous other countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keith Waldrop</span> American poet, translator and professor (1932–2023)

Bernard Keith Waldrop was an American poet, translator, publisher, and academic. He won the National Book Award for Poetry for his 2009 collection Transcendental Studies: A Trilogy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Miriam Toews</span> Canadian writer (born 1964)

Miriam Toews is a Canadian writer and author of nine books, including A Complicated Kindness (2004), All My Puny Sorrows (2014), and Women Talking (2018). She has won a number of literary prizes including the Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Writers' Trust Engel/Findley Award for her body of work. Toews is also a three-time finalist for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and a two-time winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David Bergen</span> Canadian writer

David Bergen is a Canadian novelist. He has published eleven novels and two collections of short stories since 1993 and is currently based in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. His 2005 novel The Time in Between won the Scotiabank Giller Prize and he was a finalist again in 2010 and 2020, making the long list in 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marina Endicott</span> Canadian writer

Marina Endicott is a Canadian novelist and short story writer. Her novel Good to a Fault won the 2009 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Canada and the Caribbean and was a finalist for the Giller Prize. Her next, The Little Shadows, was longlisted for the Giller Prize and shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award. Close to Hugh was longlisted for the Giller Prize and named one of CBC's Best Books of 2015. The Difference won the City of Edmonton Robert Kroetsch Prize. It was published in the US by W. W. Norton as The Voyage of the Morning Light in June 2020.

Billie Livingston is a Canadian novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. Born in Hamilton, Ontario, Livingston grew up in Toronto and Vancouver, British Columbia. She lives in Vancouver.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Heather O'Neill</span> Canadian writer (b. 1973)

Heather O'Neill is a Canadian novelist, poet, short story writer, screenwriter and journalist, who published her debut novel, Lullabies for Little Criminals, in 2006. The novel was subsequently selected for the 2007 edition of Canada Reads, where it was championed by singer-songwriter John K. Samson. Lullabies won the competition. The book also won the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and was shortlisted for eight other major awards, including the Orange Prize for Fiction and the Governor General's Award and was longlisted for International Dublin Literary Award.

<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">Sean Michaels (writer)</span> Canadian novelist, music critic, and blogger

Sean Michaels is a Scottish-born Canadian novelist, music critic, and blogger, based in Montreal, Quebec. Michaels’ first novel, Us Conductors won the 2014 Scotiabank Giller Prize. His second, The Wagers (2019), was named “a wistful and wonderful adventure” by Booklist. His third, Do You Remember Being Born?, was praised by the Globe & Mail as “wildly unique…it might be the forebear of a whole new genre of writing."

The Vincent Graves Greene Philatelic Research Foundation is a nonprofit philatelic library, publisher and expertisation service based in Ontario, Canada.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Major Jackson</span> American poet and professor (born 1968)

Major Jackson is an American poet and professor at Vanderbilt University. He is the author of six collections of poetry: Razzle Dazzle: New & Selected Poems 2002-2022, The Absurd Man, Roll Deep, Holding Company, Hoops, finalist for an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literature-Poetry, and Leaving Saturn, winner of the 2000 Cave Canem Poetry Prize and finalist for a National Book Critics Award Circle. His edited volumes include: Best American Poetry 2019, Renga for Obama, and Library of America's Countee Cullen: Collected Poems. His prose is published in A Beat Beyond: Selected Prose of Major Jackson. He is host of the podcast The Slowdown.

Cary Fagan is a Canadian writer of novels, short stories, and children's books. His novel, The Student, was a finalist for the Toronto Book Award and the Governor General's Literary Award. Previously a short-story collection, My Life Among the Apes, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and his widely praised adult novel, A Bird's Eye, was shortlisted for the 2013 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. His novel Valentine's Fall was nominated for the 2010 Toronto Book Award. Since publishing his first original children's book in 2001, he has published 25 children's titles.

Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer is a Canadian novelist and short story writer.

<i>The Age of Longing</i> 1995 novel by Richard B. Wright

The Age of Longing is a 1995 novel by Canadian author Richard B. Wright and published by HarperCollins. The novel was nominated for the 1995 Scotiabank Giller Prize and Governor General's Award in the English-language fiction category.

Jael Ealey Richardson is a Canadian writer and broadcaster. The daughter of former Canadian Football League quarterback Chuck Ealey, she is best known for The Stone Thrower, a book about her father which has been published both as an adult memoir in 2012 and as an illustrated children's book in 2015.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zalika Reid-Benta</span> Canadian writer

Zalika Reid-Benta is a Canadian author. Her debut novel River Mumma was a finalist for the 2024 Trillium Book Award and received starred reviews from publications such as Publishers Weekly. It has been listed as one of the best fiction books of 2023 on numerous platforms, including CBC Books. The novel is a "magical realist story" inspired by Jamaican folklore. The main character, Alicia Gale, is a young Black woman having a quarter-life crisis, while adventuring through the streets of Toronto, Ontario.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barbara Wylie</span>

Barbara Fanny Wylie (1862–1954) was a British suffragette. In 1909 she joined the Women's Society and Political Union (WSPU). In 1910 joined the Glasgow, Scotland, branch of WSPU as an activist and organizer. Wylie was best known for her passion within the fight for women's rights, especially the rights to vote and have equality to men.

References

  1. ↑ "Joan Louise Barfoot".
  2. ↑ Canadian Books & Authors web site
  3. ↑ "An Interview with Joan Barfoot". Archived from the original on 2012-01-27. Retrieved 2010-11-04.
  4. ↑ Godfrey, Dave. "Fairest of the Fair." Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Sharon R. Gunton, vol. 18, Gale, 1981. Gale Literature Criticism, link-gale-com.ezproxy.torontopubliclibrary.ca/apps/doc/FLBHSH066013694/GLS?u=tplmain&sid=bookmark-GLS&xid=e7931752. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024. Originally published in Books in Canada, vol. 8, no. 4, Apr. 1979, pp. 3-4.
  5. ↑ Craig, Patricia. "Choosing to Live Alone." Contemporary Literary Criticism, edited by Sharon R. Gunton, vol. 18, Gale, 1981. Gale Literature Criticism, link-gale-com.ezproxy.torontopubliclibrary.ca/apps/doc/YVUWDR350891765/GLS?u=tplmain&sid=bookmark-GLS&xid=df01c307. Accessed 24 Sept. 2024. Originally published in The Times Literary Supplement, no. 4021, 1980, p. 450.
  6. ↑ "Author web site". Archived from the original on 2012-01-11. Retrieved 2010-09-23.
  7. ↑ "Bookclubs.ca web site". Archived from the original on 2011-07-25. Retrieved 2010-09-23.
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.