Sandra Birdsell

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Sandra Louise Birdsell CM (maiden name: Sandra Bartlett ; born April 22, 1942 in Hamiota , Manitoba ) is a Canadian writer who is best known for her novels and short stories , which examine the lives of mostly female small-town residents, who like Birdsell himself in live in the prairie regions of Canada.

Life

Professional activities and first short story collections

Birdsell, who grew up in Morris as the fifth of eleven children of a Mennonite mother who immigrated from Russia and a father of Métis descent , worked as a lecturer in creative writing after attending school and studying and was a writer in residence at numerous universities in Canada.

Like most of her fictional characters, Birdsell lived in the prairie regions, settling first in Winnipeg and later in Regina . Her works examine the lives of mostly female small town residents. In addition to her novels and short stories Birdsell also wrote works for the stage , radio plays and screenplays for film and television.

Birdsell's first two collections of short stories, Night Travelers (1982) and Ladies of the House (1984), explored family and psychological problems in rural and urban settlements. The members of the Lafrenière family, portrayed in many of their stories, seek a contentment they miss in the fictional town of Agissiz, Manitoba. Her female characters often feel trapped in the home environment and their roles as daughters, wives, and mothers. In an interview on the subject of her work, she stated: “The presence of absence in a person's life. And like them try to fill it because you can't, as I believe. ”('The presence of absence in a person's life. And how they attempt to fill it, because you never can, I don't think. '). The stories contained in these two collections were published together in the book Agassiz Stories in 1987 .

Novel debut and awards

Her first novel, The Missing Child (1989), also took place in Agassiz, which was here on the verge of flooding caused by the melting of an underground glacier. This sustaining, polyphonic novel, which combined a naturalistic narrative with moments of magical realism , won the Smithbooks / Books in Canada First Novel Award in 1989, beating Marilyn Bowering's debut novel To All Appearances a Lady , among others .

In The Chrome Suite (1992), middle-aged screenwriter Amy Barber, while driving from Toronto to native Manitoba, reconstructed the events of her past to try to understand feelings of dissatisfaction with her life. The novel was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Fiction and won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award .

In 1993, Sandra Birdsell received the Marion Engel Award , a literary prize given to a Canadian writer in the middle of her career for her life's work. She was nominated for a Juno Award for her radio play The Town That Floated Away , which appeared in 1995 . In 1997 she won the Saskatchewan Children's Literature Award for the children's book of the same name .

Birdsell's third collection of short stories, The Two-Headed Calf (1997), won the 1997 Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award . Unlike the previous collections, this one did not have a common environment, but linked the stories through a common theme, a concept of duality.

Birdsell provided a representation of her own Russian-Mennonite ancestry in the novel The Russländer (2001). This epic family story takes place during a chaotic and violent upheaval in Russia at the beginning of the 19th century. The life-changing and devastating events are remembered from the perspective of a child, that of Katya Vogt, an older woman now living in Winnipeg. The Russländer was shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2001 and won the Saskatchewan Book of the Year Award .

Sandra Birdsell continued the story of the Vogt family in Children of the Day (2005). Sara Vogt lives in rural Manitoba as the wife of Métis Olvier Vandal and is the mother of ten children. The novel takes place on a single day in June 1953, a day when internal and external pressures build up and threaten to destroy this family. As in her other works, it is once again Birdsell's careful attention to specific details and individual voices that once again allow the reader to connect and worry about these characters in this particular place and time. Her novel Waiting for Joe , published in 2010, is about the couple Joe and Laurie, whose love of life beyond their means overtakes them now after they lose their job and their house.

In 2012, Sandra Birdsell was honored with the Saskatchewan Order of Merit .

Publications

  • Night travelers , 1982
  • Ladies of the house , 1984
  • Agassiz stories , 1987
  • The missing child , 1989
  • The chrome suite , 1992
  • The two-headed calf , 1997
  • The town that floated away , 1997
  • The Russian , 2001
  • Katya , 2004
  • Children of the day , 2005
  • Waiting for Joe , 2010

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Book Review: Waiting for Joe , by Sandra Birdsell ( Memento of the original from September 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: National Post of September 24, 2010 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / arts.nationalpost.com
  2. ^ A little absurdism on the prairie . In: The Globe and Mail, October 5, 2010
personal data
SURNAME Birdsell, Sandra
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Birdsell, Sandra Louise (full name); Bartlett, Sandra Louise (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian writer
DATE OF BIRTH April 22, 1942
PLACE OF BIRTH Hamiota , Manitoba