Austin Clarke

This article is about the Canadian novelist. For other uses, see Austin Clarke (disambiguation).

Austin Clarke
Occupation	novelist, short story writer, essayist
Nationality	Barbadian
Period	1960s-present
Notable work(s)	The Polished Hoe, The Origin of Waves

Austin Ardinel Chesterfield Clarke, CM, OOnt (born July 26, 1934) is a Canadian novelist, essayist and short story writer who lives in Toronto, Ontario. Born in St. James, Barbados, in 1955 Clarke moved to Canada, where he attended the University of Toronto.

He was a reporter in the Ontario communities of Timmins and Kirkland Lake, before joining the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a freelance journalist.

Awards

In 1998, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada. He won the Giller Prize for The Polished Hoe in 2002, as well as the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2003. In 2009 he received the Toronto Book Award for his novel More.

Bibliography

Novels

• The Survivors of the Crossing (1964)
• Amongst Thistles and Thorns (1965)
• The Meeting Point (1967)
• Storm of Fortune (1973)
• The Bigger Light (1975)
• The Prime Minister (1977)
• Proud Empires (1988)
• The Origin of Waves (1997, winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize)
• The Question (1999, nominated for a Governor General's Award)
• The Polished Hoe (2002, winner of the Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize)
• More (2008)

Short stories

• When He Was Free and Young and He Used to Wear Silks (1971)
• When Women Rule (1985)
• Nine Men Who Laughed (1986)
• In This City (1992)
• There Are No Elders (1993)
• Choosing His Coffin (2003)

Non-fiction

• Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack (1980)
• Public Enemies: Police Violence and Black Youth (1992)
• A Passage Back Home: A Personal Reminiscence of Samuel Selvon (1994)
• Pigtails 'n' Breadfruit (1999)
• A Stranger In A Strange Land

External links

• Famous Canadian Immigrant Authors
• Austin Clarke's entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia
• Order of Canada citation