Guy Gavriel Kay

Guy Gavriel Kay CM
Born	(1954-11-07) November 7, 1954 Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada
Occupation	Writer
Nationality	Canadian
Period	1984–present
Genre	Fantasy, historical fiction
Notable works	The Summer Tree Tigana
Website
www.brightweavings.com

Guy Gavriel Kay CM (born November 7, 1954) is a Canadian writer of fantasy fiction. Many of his novels are set in fictional realms that resemble real places during real historical periods, such as Constantinople during the reign of Justinian I or Spain during the time of El Cid. Those works are published and marketed as historical fantasy, although Kay has expressed a preference to avoid genre categorization.

As of early 2016, Kay has published 12 novels and a book of poetry. His fiction has been translated into more than 25 languages.

Biography

Kay was born in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

When Christopher Tolkien needed an assistant to edit his father J. R. R. Tolkien's unpublished work, he chose Kay, then a student of philosophy at the University of Manitoba. Kay moved to Oxford in 1974 to assist Tolkien in editing The Silmarillion.

He returned to Canada in 1975 to take a law degree at the University of Toronto. He was called to the bar of Ontario in 1981.

Kay became Principal Writer and Associate Producer for a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio series, The Scales of Justice.

In 1984, Kay's first fantasy work, The Summer Tree, the first volume of the trilogy The Fionavar Tapestry, was published.

Works

• The Fionavar Tapestry, concerning five people from our Earth in a parallel world, "the first of all worlds", in three parts:
  • The Summer Tree (1984)
  • The Wandering Fire (1986), winner of the 1987 Prix Aurora Award
  • The Darkest Road (1986)
• Tigana (1990), set in a period inspired by renaissance Italy
• A Song for Arbonne (1992), a modification of the Albigensian Crusade in a medieval Provence, winner of the 1993 Prix Aurora Award
• The Lions of Al-Rassan (1995), set in an analogue of medieval Spain
• The Sarantine Mosaic, inspired by the Byzantium of Justinian I, in two parts:
  • Sailing to Sarantium (1998)
  • Lord of Emperors (2000)
• Beyond This Dark House (2003), a collection of poetry
• The Last Light of the Sun (2004), evoking the Viking invasions during the reign of Alfred the Great
• Ysabel (2007), a modern urban fantasy set in Provence, centering on a teenage boy and his encounters with characters from the distant past. Explicitly if lightly linked to The Fionavar Tapestry
• Under Heaven (April 27, 2010), based on the 8th century Tang Dynasty and the events leading up to the An Shi Rebellion
• River of Stars (April 2, 2013), set in the same timeline as Under Heaven, based on the 12th century Song Dynasty and the events around the Jin-Song Wars and the transition from Northern Song to Southern Song
• Children of Earth and Sky (May 10, 2016), set in the same world as The Lions of Al-Rassan, The Sarantine Mosaic, and The Last Light of the Sun, and evoking Croatia in the 16th century.

Nominations, awards and accolades

Awards

• Kay won the 1985 Scales of Justice Award for best media treatment of a legal issue, Canadian Law Reform Commission, 1985, for Second Time Around.
• The Wandering Fire won the 1987 Prix Aurora Award in the English category, and the 1987 Casper Award for best speculative fiction.
• Kay was runner up for the White Pine Award in 2007 for Ysabel.
• Ysabel was the winner of the 2008 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.
• Kay has also won the International Goliardos Award for his work in the fantasy field.
• Under Heaven won the Sunburst Award in 2011. and was long listed for the IMPAC/Dublin Literary prize.
• Kay was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2014 "for his contributions to the field of speculative fiction as an internationally celebrated author."

Nominations

• Kay has been nominated several times for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature.
• Kay has been nominated four times for the World Fantasy Award, and won in 2008 for "'Ysabel'".
• The translation of The Lions of Al-Rassan was nominated for the Israeli Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Geffen Award in 2005.
• Kay was nominated for the Canadian Sunburst Award in 2005 for The Last Light of the Sun.

External links

• Bright Weavings – authorized website with some contributions by Kay
• Kay at publisher Penguin Books Canada
• Guy Gavriel Kay at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
• Guy Gavriel Kay entry in The Canadian Encyclopedia
• Guy Gavriel Kay at Library of Congress, with 22 library catalogue records

Interviews

• Interview on the now-defunct Event Horizon at the Wayback Machine (archived October 4, 1999)
• Interview by Raymond H. Thompson at the Library of Rochester
• World Fantasy 2008 Podcast