André Alexis

André Alexis
Born January 15, 1957
Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
Occupation writer
Nationality Canadian
Genre novelist
Notable works Childhood, Fifteen Dogs

André Alexis (born 15 January 1957 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago) is a Canadian writer who grew up in Ottawa and currently lives in Toronto, Ontario.[1]

His debut novel, Childhood (1997), won the Books in Canada First Novel Award, and was a co-winner of the Trillium Award.[1] His most recent novel, Fifteen Dogs, won the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize[2] and Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize,[3] and was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Awards.

Biography

Alexis began his artistic career in the theatre, and has held the position of playwright-in-residence at the Canadian Stage Company. His short play Lambton, Kent, first produced and performed in 1995, was released as a book in 1999.[1] His first published work of fiction, Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa (1994), was short-listed for the Commonwealth Prize (Canada and Caribbean region).[1]

His first novel Childhood was published in 1998. It won the Books in Canada First Novel Award and was co-winner of the Trillium Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize.[1]

Alexis published Ingrid and the Wolf, his first work of juvenile fiction, in 2005. The book was a shortlisted nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language children's literature at the 2006 Governor General's Awards.[4]

Alexis wrote the libretto for James Rolfe's opera Aeneas and Dido, which premiered at Toronto Masque Theatre in 2007.[5]

His novel Asylum was published in 2008, and is set in Ottawa during the government of Brian Mulroney.[6]

In 2014 Alexis published Pastoral, the first in a planned series of five novels on philosophical themes.[7] Fifteen Dogs, the second novel in the series, was published in 2015[8] and won both the Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers' Trust Award that year.[7] The third novel, The Hidden Keys, is slated for publication in 2016.[7]

Alexis lives and works in Toronto, where he has hosted programming for CBC Radio, reviews books for The Globe and Mail, and is a contributing editor for This Magazine.

Bibliography

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 André Alexis in The Canadian Encyclopedia.
  2. "André Alexis wins 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize for Fifteen Dogs". CBC Books, November 10, 2015.
  3. "Andre Alexis wins Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for 'Fifteen Dogs'. Vancouver Sun, November 3, 2015.
  4. "2006 Governor General's Literary Awards". Toronto Star, November 18, 2006.
  5. "New opera explores flip side of classic tale; James Rolfe, Andre Alexis pen a new work where Aeneas gets the last word". Toronto Star, April 25, 2007.
  6. "A wonderfully corrupt capital; Andre Alexis novel paints a Mulroney-era portrait of a crazily complex, decadent and exciting Ottawa". Ottawa Citizen, April 27, 2008.
  7. 1 2 3 "Alexis's Fifteen Dogs wins Scotiabank Giller Prize". The Globe and Mail, November 11, 2015.
  8. "Fifteen Dogs by André Alexis: Review". Toronto Star, March 28, 2015.
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