Hugh Garner

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Hugh Garner (born February 22, 1913 in Batley , Yorkshire , United Kingdom , † June 30, 1979 in Toronto ) was a Canadian writer of British origin.

Life

Hugh Garner was born in Batley, Yorkshire, in 1913 and came to Canada with his parents in 1919 , where he grew up in Toronto , Ontario . During the Great Depression hitchhiked he like many other unemployed with the trains across Canada and the United States . He then fought as a member of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War . During World War II , he served in the Canadian Navy .

After the end of the war, Garner concentrated on writing. He published his first novel, Storm Below , in 1949. In the following year, his most famous novel in Canada, Cabbagetown , appeared in an abridged version, which was not expanded until 1968. In this novel, he vividly portrayed neighborhood life in Cabbagetown, a Toronto slum that he had seen firsthand. The follow-up novel The Intruders , which illuminated the gentrification in Cabbagetown over the generations, appeared in 1976.

Garner later focused on detective novels such as Death in Don Mills (1975) and Murder Has Your Number (1978).

Garner's personal background - poverty, urban origins, Protestant - was rare for a Canadian writer of his generation and, in a sense, laid the foundation for his writing. His subject was the working class of Ontario and the realistic novel was his preferred genre. Cabbagetown is therefore the best example of his literary style. His focus on the victim role of the worker reflects his own social and socialist roots.

In 1963 Garner won the Governor General's Award for Fiction for his collection of short stories entitled Hugh Garner's Best Stories . Garner fought his alcohol addiction long throughout his life and died in Toronto in 1979. A housing association in Cabbagetown was named in his honor.

plant

Novels
  • Storm Below (1949)
  • Waste no Tears (1950); published under the pen name Jarvis Warwick , probably chosen after the Warwick Hotel on Jarvis Street in Toronto.
  • Cabbagetown . abridged version (1950); extended original version (1968)
  • Xia Sun (1962)
  • The Sin Sniper (1970)
  • A Nice Place to Visit (1970)
  • Death in Don Mills (1975)
  • The Intruders (1976)
  • Murder Has Your Number (1950)
  • Don't Deal Five Deuces (1992); Posthumously completed by Paul Steuwe
Short stories
  • One Two Three Little Indians . 1952 full text , with questions to students
  • The Yellow Sweater (1952)
  • Hugh Garner's Best Stories (1963)
  • Men and Women (1966)
  • Violation of the Virgins (1971)
  • One mile of ice
  • The Moose and the Sparrow (1966)
  • The happiest man in the world, in: Columbus and the giant lady. Translator Marlies Juhnke. Structure TB (atv), Berlin 1992, pp. 7 - 25 ( The happiest man in the world , from: Fourteen Stories High. Best Canadian stories of '71. Eds. David Helwig, Tom Marshall. Oberon, Ottawa 1971 ISBN 088750047 p . 35 - 50)
other prose
  • Author, author! (1964; essays)
  • One Damned Thing After Another! (1973; memoir)

literature

  • Paul Steuwe: The Storms Below: The Turbulent Life and Times of Hugh Garner. James Lorimer, Toronto 1988.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c Stuewe, Paul. 1988. The Storms Below: The Turbulent Life and Times of Hugh Garner. James Lorimer, Toronto ISBN 1-55028-150-X .
  2. ^ Hugh Garner , The Canadian Encyclopedia .
personal data
SURNAME Garner, Hugh
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Warwick, Jarvis (pseudonym)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian writer
DATE OF BIRTH February 22, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Batley , Yorkshire , United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH June 30, 1979
Place of death Toronto , Canada