Henry Beissel

Henry Eric Beissel (born April 12, 1929 in Cologne ) is a Canadian poet , playwright, translator, literary critic and editor. He has published poems, plays, a non-fiction book, two anthologies as well as numerous essays and short stories. He studied philosophy in Cologne and London . In 1951 he went to Canada .

In 1958 he received the Norma Epstein Award for Creative Writing from the University of Toronto . In Edmonton , he published the literary and political magazine Edge from 1963 to 1969 . He became an advocate of the indigenous cultures of Canada, the Indians of North America and the Eskimos . In 1973 his work Inuk and the Sun was performed, with which he first attracted international attention, as well as with Under Coyote's Eye , which has been translated many times.

Beissel taught English literature and later creative writing at the University of Toronto. From 1960 to 1962 he taught at the University of Munich , then for two years at the University of Alberta , and finally from 1966 to 1996 at Concordia University in Montréal . In 1994 he received the Walter Bauer Prize in Merseburg . Today he lives in Ottawa with his wife Arlette Francière .

Works (selection)

• New Wings for Icarus . Coach House, Toronto 1966
• A different sun . Oberon, Ottawa 1976
• Inuk and the Sun . Gage, Toronto 1980
• Under Coyote's Eye . Quadrant, Dunvegan 1980
• Canada. Romance and reality . Pinguin Verlag, Innsbruck and Umschau-Verlag, Frankfurt 1981
• Season of Blood. Mosaic, Toronto 1984
• The Noose & Improvisations for Mister X . Cormorant, Dunvegan 1989
• Dying I was Born . Penumbra, Waterloo 1992
• Stones to Harvest . Moonstone, Gooderich 1993
• Across the Sun's Warp . Buschek, Ottawa 2003
• What If Zen Gardens? Guernica, 2017

Web links

• Author's site
• Settlement and Survival: Henry Beissel's 'Cantos North' by Helmut Markus
• Think or sink with Henry Beissel
• CV, English
• Beissel in the project "Life Stories", a school project in North Rhine-Westphalia, with a portrait photo from 1946