The 2008 Giller Prize Shortlist Nominee: Joseph Boyden
Updated Thu. Oct. 23 2008 11:45 AM ET
Joseph Boyden is a Canadian with Irish, Scottish and Métis roots. His first novel, Three Day Road, has been published in 10 languages.
The book was selected for The Today Show book club, won the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, the CBA Libris Award's Fiction Book of the Year, the Amazon.ca/Books in Print First Novel Award, the 2005 McNally Robinson Aboriginal Book of the Year Award, and was shortlisted for the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction.
Boyden is the author of Born with a Tooth, a collection of stories that was shortlisted for the Upper Canada Writer's Craft Award.
Boyden divides his time between Northern Ontario and Louisiana, where he teaches writing at the University of New Orleans.
Nominated Work: Through Black Spruce (Viking Canada)
Through Black Spruce is a novel of contemporary aboriginal life, full of the dangers and harsh beauty of both forest and city.
When beautiful Suzanne Bird disappears, her sister Annie, a loner and hunter, is compelled to search for her, leaving behind their uncle Will, a man haunted by loss.
While Annie travels from Toronto to New York, from modeling studios to A-list parties, Will encounters dire troubles at home.
Both eventually come to painful discoveries about the inescapable ties of family.
READ AN EXCERPT FROM "THROUGH BLACK SPRUCE"
