Austin Clarke (writer)

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Austin Clarke (2006)

Austin Ardinel Chesterfield "Tom" Clarke , CM , O.Ont (born July 26, 1934 in Saint Michael , Barbados , † June 26, 2016 in Toronto ) was a Canadian writer , journalist , civil rights activist and politician of Barbadian origin. His novels and short stories are about a. of rural life on the island of Barbados, of the difficulties and ambiguities of the life of West Indian immigrants in Canada, and of Afro-American identity and marginalization . His most successful novel is The Polished Hoe . Clarke lived in Toronto.

Life and work

Austin Clarke grew up in Barbados. He taught at a rural school for three years before moving to Canada in 1955 to study at the University of Toronto . There he became a leading activist in the Toronto civil rights movement .

Clarke made his debut in 1964 with the novel Survivors of the Crossing (1964). After having worked as a journalist and radio reporter for several years and published two more books, he worked as a lecturer in creative writing at various US universities, including a. at Yale University (1968–1970), at Duke University (1971–1972) and at the University of Texas (1973).

From 1973 Clarke served temporarily as the cultural attache of Barbados in Washington . From 1975 to 1977 he served as general manager of the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation and from 1973 to 1976 as advisor to the Prime Minister of Barbados . In 1976 he returned to Canada and ran for the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in the Ontario elections in 1977 . He applied for Canadian citizenship in 1981 and obtained it in 1985. From 1988 to 1993 he worked for the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.

Clarke was Writer-in-Residence at Massey College, University of Toronto and the Toronto Public Library. In 1998 he received the Order of Canada and four honorary doctorates in the following years . His novel The Polished Hoe (2002) won the Scotiabank Giller Prize , the Trillium Book Award , the Regional Commonwealth Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Award. At the International Festival of Authors 2012, Clarke's work and services to promoting writers were honored with the Harbourfront Festival Prize.

Awards

  • 1980 Casa de las Américas Prize, Cuba
  • 1992 Toronto Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement in Literature
  • 1997 Lifetime Achievement Award from Frontier College, Toronto
  • 1998 Member of the Order of Canada
  • 1998 Rogers Communication Writers Trust Prize
  • 1999 Martin Luther King Junior Award for Excellence in Writing
  • 1999 WO Mitchell Award
  • 2002 Scotiabank Giller Prize for The Polished Hoe
  • 2003 Trillium Book Award for The Polished Hoe
  • 2003 Commonwealth Writers Best Book Award for Canada and the Caribbean region for The Polished Hoe
  • 2003 Commonwealth Writers Award for The Polished Hoe
  • 2009 Toronto Book Awards for More
  • 2012 Harbourfront Festival Prize

Works

Novels

  • The Survivors of the Crossing . McClelland & Stewart, Toronto 1964
  • The meeting point . Macmillan, Toronto 1967
  • Storm of Fortune . Little Brown, Boston 1973
  • The Bigger Light . Little Brown, Boston 1975
  • The Prime Minister . General Publishing, Don Mills ON 1977
  • Proud Empires . Gollancz, London 1988
  • The Origin of Waves . McClelland & Stewart, Toronto 1997
  • The Question . McClelland & Stewart, 1999
  • The Polished Hoe . Thomas Allen, Toronto 2002
  • More . Amistad, New York 2008

Short stories

  • Amongst Thistles and Thorns . McClelland & Stewart, 1965
  • When He Was Free and Young and He Used to Wear Silks . Anansi, Toronto 1971
  • When Women Rule . McClelland and Stewart, 1985
  • Canadian Experience . 1986
  • Nine Men Who Laughed . Penguin, Toronto 1986
  • In This City . Exile Editions, Toronto 1992
  • There are no Elders . Exile Editions, Toronto 2007
  • They Never Told Me: and Other Stories . Exile Editions, Toronto 2013
  • Choosing His Coffin: The Best Stories of Austin Clarke . T. Allen Publ., Toronto 2003

Poetry

  • Where the Sun Shines Best , Toronto: Guernica, 2013

Autobiographical works

  • Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack . McClelland & Stewart, 1980
  • Public Enemies: Police Violence and Black Youth . HarperCollins, Toronto 1992
  • A Passage Back Home: A Personal Reminiscence of Samuel Selvon . Exile Editions, Toronto 1994
  • Pigtails 'n' Breadfruit: The Rituals of Slave Food, A Barbadian Memoir . Random House, Toronto 1999
  • Membering . Cormorant, Toronto 2015

literature

  • Michael A. Bucknor: Austin Clarke - Affective Affiliations and the Cross-Border Poetics of Caribbean Canadian Writing, in Beyond "Understanding Canada". Transnational Perspectives on Canadian Literature. Ed. Melissa Tanti, Jeremy Haynes, Daniel Coleman, Lorraine York. University of Alberta Press, Edmonton 2017, pp. 51-78

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tom Clarke passes
  2. ↑ a b Austin Clarke at: bimlitfest.org, accessed August 12, 2015.
  3. ↑ a b c d e f Austin Clarke at: litfest.ms, accessed on August 12, 2015.
  4. ^ A b c Austin Clarke from "Canadian writers", Athabasca University , accessed August 12, 2015.
  5. ↑ a b Stella Algoo-Baksh: Austin Clarke ( English, French ) In: The Canadian Encyclopedia . Retrieved July 28, 2019.
  6. ↑ Linda Hutcheon and Marion Richmond (eds.), Other Solitudes: Canadian Multicultural Fictions , Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1990 ISBN 978-0195407563 , p. 69. Quotation online at: eng.fju.edu.tw, accessed 12. August 2015.
  7. ↑ Austin Clarke at: bimlitfest.org, accessed August 12, 2015.
  8. ^ Austin Chesterfield Clarke, CM, O.Ont. at: archive.gg.ca, accessed on August 12, 2015.
  9. ^ A b Paul Irish, Austin Clarke wins Harbourfront Festival Prize , Toronto Star , accessed August 12, 2015
  10. ^ The Austin Clarke Library at dundurn.com, accessed August 12, 2015.
  11. ↑ Brian W. Shaffer et al. (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Fiction , Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2010 ISBN 978-1405192446 , p. 1019.
  12. ↑ History shows how difficult it is for the so-called "visible minorities" to find an equal place in the Canadian "mosaic".
personal data
SURNAME Clarke, Austin
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Clarke, Austin Ardinel Chesterfield (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Afro-Canadian writer, journalist, civil rights activist and politician
DATE OF BIRTH July 26, 1934
PLACE OF BIRTH Barbados
DATE OF DEATH June 26, 2016
Place of death Toronto