Author Nominee: Canada

Brian Doyle
Canada, Author

I write, not proselytise, instruct, inform,moralise or convert. Neither do I write to render verdicts or effect justice. I write rather to present evidence and bear witness …. In this manner,my aim is to create readers where there were no readers before.

- Brian Doyle

Born in Ottawa, Canada in August 1935, Brian Doyle realised at the age of ten that he wanted to be a writer. He attributes his love of stories and language to the Irish culture that permeates his family homeplace in the Gatineau Hills of Quebec where he now lives. He gained a degree in journalism, and subsequently enrolled for a master's degree in literature which he didn't complete, but he did begin to write. In 1959 his first story was published in a literary magazine and he began his teaching career in a high school. He has now retired from teaching and concentrates on his writing.

His first novel, Hey Dad!, written for his daughter Megan, wasn't published until 1978; since then, eleven more books have appeared and he has been recognised as one of Canada's foremost writers for young people. Reviewers and critics frequently comment on the strong sense of place in Doyle's novels, and his evocation of the Gatineau Hills area and Ottawa's Lower-town is almost palpable in much of his writing. Boys, or young men, undergoing a transforming personal experience also feature strongly in his work, in titles such as Up to Low (1982), Uncle Ronald (1996), Boy O'Boy (2003) and Pure Spring (2007).

Critic Deirdre F Baker comments that 'Doyle's highly valuable contribution to children's literature lies in his unique artistic expression of serious matters which touch on children's experience: wounds inflicted by abusive fathers, teachers and other authority figures; loving but sorrowful bonds with siblings who suffer physical and mental disabilities; and the hardships of poverty. He balances these grievous facts of life with their positive antidotes: tender, open-hearted father figures; courageous activists against injustice; and characters whose robust humour and deep appreciation for small pleasures have the power of restoration and healing. He meets aggression with compassion; tragedy with comedy; authority with subversion.'

Doyle's books have been translated into six languages and adapted for radio, stage and film. He has won numerous awards in Canada and abroad for his work; on four occasions he has won Canada's most prestigious prize, the Canadian Library Association Book of the Year for Children Award and has received a lifetime achievement honour, the Laureate of the NSK Neustadt Prize for Children's Literature.