Clark Blaise
Clark Blaise | |
|---|---|
| Born | April 10, 1940 Fargo, North Dakota |
| Occupation | Writer |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Canadian-American |
| Alma mater | Denison University, University of Iowa |
| Notable awards | Officer of the Order of Canada (2009) |
| Spouse | Bharati Mukherjee (d. 2017) |
| Children | Two |
Clark Blaise, OC (born April 10, 1940) is a Canadian-American author.[1] He was a professor of creative writing at York University, and a writer of short fiction. In 2010, he was named an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Early life and education
[edit]Blaise was born in Fargo, North Dakota, to Canadian parents who lived in the United States.[2] His mother, Anne Marion Vanstone, was English-Canadian and from Wawanesa, Manitoba, and his father, Leo Romeo Blaise, was of French-Canadian descent and was a furniture salesman and long-distance traveller.[3] Later on, his father would inspire the father characters in Blaise's fiction.[3] Growing up, his family moved constantly throughout the U.S.[2][3] Before the eighth grade, he had already moved 30 times; ultimately, he attended 25 different schools.[3] From ages six to ten, he lived in Florida.[3] Throughout his childhood, Blaise also lived in Alabama, Georgia, communities in the American Midwest, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Winnipeg.[3] When Blaise was nineteen, his parents divorced.[3]
He attended Denison University and the University of Iowa, graduating in 1961 and 1964 respectively.[2] While at Denison University, he initially intended to pursue a major in geology but switched to English[4] after taking a writing course in which he studied under Paul Bennett.[3] While studying at Denison, he read extensively, began writing book reviews for the weekly newspaper, helped edit campus literary magazines, and received several campus writing awards.[3]
Career
[edit]In 1966, Blaise moved to Montreal and obtained Canadian citizenship.[2] While living in Canada, Blaise published his first two short fiction collections, A North American Education (1973)[5] and Tribal Justice (1974).[2]
Blaise was the director of the International Writing Program. While living in Montreal in the early 1970s, he taught creative writing at Concordia University; he also joined with authors Raymond Fraser, Hugh Hood, John Metcalf and Ray Smith to form the Montreal Story Tellers Fiction Performance Group. Blaise and Mukherjee collaborated on a memoir of experiences in India which was published in 1978.
In 1978, Blaise and Mukherjee moved to Toronto. Blaise became a professor of creative writing at York University, and wrote his first novel.
Mukherjee felt excluded in Canada, attributing it to racism and publishing an essay in Saturday Night.[6][7] In 1980, the couple decided to return to the United States,[6] moving to San Francisco.[8] Both continued their literary careers, including a collaborative analysis of the 1985 bombing of Air India flight 182, known in India as the Kanishka bombing.[9] Blaise wrote two more novels and a number of short stories.
Personal life
[edit]He married writer Bharati Mukherjee in 1963.[10] They met as students at the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa[6] and have two sons.[7] Mukherjee died in 2017.[10] Mukherjee was remembered by the San Francisco Chronicle as "a professor emerita at UC Berkeley whose many works examined the Indian American immigrant experience," and married to Clark Blaise.[11] Blaise lives in New York.[12]
Honours and awards
[edit]In 2009, he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada "for his contributions to Canadian letters as an author, essayist, teacher, and founder of the post-graduate program in creative writing at Concordia University".[13]
Bibliography
[edit]Short story collections
[edit]- A North American Education – 1973 [14]
- Tribal Justice – 1974
- Resident Alien – 1986
- Man and His World – 1992
- Southern Stories – 2000
- Pittsburgh Stories – 2001
- Montreal Stories – 2003
- The Meagre Tarmac – 2011 (longlisted for the 2011 Scotiabank Giller Prize)
Novels
[edit]- Lunar Attractions – 1979 (winner of the 1980 Books in Canada First Novel Award)
- Lusts – 1984
- If I Were Me – 1997
Memoirs
[edit]- Days and Nights in Calcutta – 1977 (with Bharati Mukherjee)
- I had a Father – 1992
Non-fiction
[edit]- The Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy – 1987 (with Bharati Mukherjee) [15]
- Time Lord: Sir Sandford Fleming and the creation of standard time – 2000
Criticism
[edit]- A Novel of India's Coming of Age[16] - The New York Times, April 19, 1981 (A review of Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children)
References
[edit]- ^ J. R. Tim Struthers (2016). Clark Blaise: Essays on His Work. Guernica Editions. ISBN 978-1-77183-111-6.
- ^ a b c d e Grandy, Karen. "Clark Blaise". Retrieved July 8, 2016.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Clark Blaise - Biocritical Essay | Basic page". asc.ucalgary.ca. Archived from the original on May 13, 2016. Retrieved July 8, 2016.
- ^ "Clark Blaise ~ interviewed by Derek Alger | Pif Magazine". www.pifmagazine.com. Retrieved July 8, 2016.
- ^ "The Meagre Tarmac: Stories, by Clark Blaise". The Globe and Mail, STEVEN HAYWARD, June 17, 2011
- ^ a b c "Clark Blaise and Bharati Mukherjee | Toronto Star". thestar.com. June 10, 2011. Retrieved July 8, 2016.
- ^ a b Barber, John (June 15, 2011). "Clark Blaise and Bharati Mukherjee: a shared literary journey". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved July 8, 2016.
- ^ "The invisible Canadian | Quill and Quire". September 28, 2011. Retrieved July 8, 2016.
- ^ Blaise, Clark; Mukherjee, Bharati (1987). Sorrow and the Terror: The Haunting Legacy of the Air India Tragedy. Viking. ISBN 0670812048.
- ^ a b Frances Kai-Hwa Wang. Award-Winning Author Bharati Mukherjee Dead at 76. NBC News, Feb.08.2017
- ^ McMurtrie, San Francisco Chronicle, By John (February 1, 2017) [February 1, 2017]. "Bharati Mukherjee, chronicler of Indian American life, dies at 76". The San Francisco Chronicle. Archived from the original on February 2, 2017. Retrieved July 24, 2024.
- ^ "A Quarterly of Criticism and Review". Canadian Literature. Retrieved December 17, 2019.
- ^ "Governor General Announces 57 New Appointments to the Order of Canada". Office of the Secretary to the Governor General. December 30, 2009. Retrieved December 30, 2009.
- ^ The Canadian Press (February 9, 1973). "Modern Day Huck Finn". The Phoenix. Retrieved September 18, 2013.
- ^ "Long read: How the 1985 Air India bombing could tie into the 2019 federal election in Canada". Georgia Straight, by Charlie Smith on November 12th, 2017
- ^ Blaise, Clark. "A Novel of India's Coming of Age." The New York Times. April 18, 1999. Retrieved on November 27, 2014.
External links
[edit]- Appearances on C-SPAN
- "The invisible Canadian". Quill & Quire. An article about Clark Blaise.
- 1940 births
- Living people
- Canadian male novelists
- Officers of the Order of Canada
- American emigrants to Canada
- Writers from San Francisco
- Writers from Fargo, North Dakota
- Iowa Writers' Workshop alumni
- International Writing Program alumni
- 20th-century Canadian novelists
- 20th-century Canadian male writers
- Amazon.ca First Novel Award winners