Alistair MacLeod
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Alistair MacLeod (July 20, 1936 – April 20, 2014) was a Canadian novelist, short story writer and academic. His powerful and moving stories vividly evoke the beauty of
Cape Breton Island Cape Breton Island (, formerly '; or '; ) is a rugged and irregularly shaped island on the Atlantic coast of North America and part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The island accounts for 18.7% of Nova Scotia's total area. Although ...
's rugged landscape and the resilient character of many of its inhabitants, the descendants of Scottish immigrants, who are haunted by ancestral memories and who struggle to reconcile the past and the present. MacLeod has been praised for his verbal precision, his lyric intensity and his use of simple, direct language that seems rooted in an
oral tradition Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication in which knowledge, art, ideas and culture are received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another.Jan Vansina, Vansina, Jan: ''Oral Tradition as History'' (19 ...
. Although he is known as a master of the short story, MacLeod's 1999 novel '' No Great Mischief'' was voted
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's greatest book of all time. The novel also won several literary prizes including the 2001
International Dublin Literary Award The International Dublin Literary Award (), established as the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 1996, is presented each year for a novel written or translated into English. It promotes excellence in world literature and is solely ...
. In 2000, MacLeod's two books of short stories, '' The Lost Salt Gift of Blood'' (1976) and '' As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories'' (1986), were re-published in the volume '' Island: The Collected Stories''. MacLeod compared his fiction writing to playing an
accordion Accordions (from 19th-century German language, German ', from '—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a Reed (mou ...
. "When I pull it out like this," he explained, "it becomes a novel, and when I compress it like this, it becomes this intense short story." MacLeod taught English and
creative writing Creative writing is any writing that goes beyond the boundaries of normal professional, journalistic, academic, or technical forms of literature, typically identified by an emphasis on craft and technique, such as narrative structure, character ...
for more than three decades at the
University of Windsor The University of Windsor (UWindsor, U of W, or UWin) is a public university, public research university in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's southernmost university. It has approximately 17,500 students. The university was incorporated by ...
, but returned every summer to the Cape Breton cabin on the MacLeod homestead where he did much of his writing.Alistair MacLeod
at
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.
"Alistair MacLeod author of No Great Mischief, dies at age 77"
. ''
National Post The ''National Post'' is a Canadian English-language broadsheet newspaper and the flagship publication of the American-owned Postmedia Network. It is published Mondays through Saturdays, with Monday released as a digital e-edition only.
'', April 20, 2014.
In the introduction to a book of essays on his work, editor Irene Guilford concluded: "Alistair MacLeod's birthplace is Canadian, his emotional heartland is Cape Breton, his heritage Scottish, but his writing is of the world."


Early life and education

MacLeod's Scottish ancestors emigrated to
Cumberland County, Nova Scotia Cumberland County is a county in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Cumberland was named in 1755 in honour of the Duke of Cumberland to replace Beausejour. The historic county was founded in 1759 when the English system of administration was ...
from the Isle of
Eigg Eigg ( ; ) is one of the Small Isles in the Scotland, Scottish Inner Hebrides. It lies to the south of the island of Isle of Skye, Skye and to the north of the Ardnamurchan peninsula. Eigg is long from north to south, and east to west. With ...
in the 1790s. They settled at Cape d'Or on the
Bay of Fundy The Bay of Fundy () is a bay between the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, with a small portion touching the U.S. state of Maine. It is an arm of the Gulf of Maine. Its tidal range is the highest in the world. The bay was ...
where they appear to have leased farmland. In 1808, the parents with their seven daughters and two sons walked from Cape d'Or to Inverness County, Cape Breton, a distance of 362 kilometres, after hearing they could farm their own land there. An account of the journey, written by MacLeod himself, says the family took their possessions with them, six cows and a horse. He adds there were few roads at the time, so his great-great-great-grandparents followed the shoreline. MacLeod was born in
North Battleford North Battleford is a city in west-central Saskatchewan, Canada. It is the seventh largest city in the province and is directly across the North Saskatchewan River from the town of Battleford. Together, the two communities are known as "The B ...
,
Saskatchewan Saskatchewan is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province in Western Canada. It is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, to the northeast by Nunavut, and to the south by the ...
. His parents, whose first language was
Canadian Gaelic Canadian Gaelic or Cape Breton Gaelic (, or ), often known in Canadian English simply as Gaelic, is a collective term for the dialects of Scottish Gaelic spoken in Atlantic Canada. Scottish Gaels were settled in Nova Scotia from 1773, with the ...
, had migrated to Saskatchewan from Cape Breton to homestead during the
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. The family moved on to
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when MacLeod was five and then to the town of Mercoal, Alberta where his father worked as a
coal miner Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground or from a mine. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extrac ...
. However, the MacLeods suffered from homesickness and when Alistair was 10, they returned to Cape Breton and the farmhouse in Dunvegan, Inverness County, that his great-grandfather had built in the 1860s.Christopher Shulgan. "The Reluctant Scribe: Alistair MacLeod's first novel has been eagerly awaited since 1969 when he wrote a short story that had critics hailing him as Canada's greatest living writer. Thirty years later, No Great Mischief is finally in the bookstores. What took him so long?" ''The Ottawa Citizen'', November 7, 1999, p.C6. MacLeod enjoyed attending school and apparently did well there. He told a
CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...
interviewer that as a student, he liked to read and write adding, "I was the kind of person who won the English prize in grade twelve."Shelagh Rogers. "An interview with Alistair MacLeod," in ''Alistair MacLeod Essays on His Works Irene Guilford ed. (2001) Toronto: Guernica Editions Inc. After graduating from high school in 1954, MacLeod moved to Edmonton where he delivered milk for a year from a horse-drawn wagon. In 1956, MacLeod furthered his education by attending the Nova Scotia Teachers College in
Truro Truro (; ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Cornwall, England; it is the southernmost city in the United Kingdom, just under west-south-west of Charing Cross in London. It is Cornwall's county town, s ...
and then taught school for a year on Port Hood Island off Cape Breton's west coast.Christine Evain. (2010) ''Conversations with Alistair MacLeod''. Paris: Éditions Publibook, p.17. To finance his university education, he worked summers drilling and blasting in mines in
British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
, the
Northwest Territories The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...
and, in the
uranium Uranium is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Ura ...
mines of northern
Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
. At some point, he also worked at a logging camp on
Vancouver Island Vancouver Island is an island in the northeastern Pacific Ocean and part of the Canadian province of British Columbia. The island is in length, in width at its widest point, and in total area, while are of land. The island is the largest ...
rising rapidly through the ranks because he was physically able to climb the tallest trees and rig cables to their tops. Between 1957 and 1960, MacLeod studied at St. Francis Xavier University earning a BA and B.Ed. He then went on to receive his MA in 1961 from the
University of New Brunswick The University of New Brunswick (UNB) is a public university with two primary campuses in Fredericton and Saint John, New Brunswick. It is the oldest English language, English-language university in Canada, and among the oldest public universiti ...
. He decided to study for a
PhD A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
at the
University of Notre Dame The University of Notre Dame du Lac (known simply as Notre Dame; ; ND) is a Private university, private Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. Founded in 1842 by members of the Congregation of Holy Cross, a Cathol ...
in
Indiana Indiana ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Michigan to the northwest, Michigan to the north and northeast, Ohio to the east, the Ohio River and Kentucky to the s ...
because Frank O'Malley taught creative writing there. MacLeod said he was used to analyzing the work of other authors, but wanted to start writing himself. That wouldn't have happened, he added, if he had not attended such a "creative, imaginative university." He wrote his doctoral dissertation on the English novelist
Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...
whom he admired. "I especially liked the idea," he told an interviewer years later, "that his novels were usually about people who lived outdoors and were greatly affected by the forces of nature." MacLeod was awarded his PhD in 1968, the same year he published ''The Boat'' in ''The Massachusetts Review''. The story appeared in the 1969 edition of ''The Best American Short Stories'' along with ones by
Andre Dubus Andre Jules Dubus II (August 11, 1936 – February 24, 1999) was an American writer of Short story, short stories, Novel, novels, and Essay, essays. Biography Early life and education Andre Jules Dubus II was born in Lake Charles, Louisiana, t ...
,
Bernard Malamud Bernard Malamud (April 26, 1914 – March 18, 1986) was an American novelist and short story writer. Along with Saul Bellow, Joseph Heller, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Norman Mailer and Philip Roth, he was one of the best known American Jewish ...
,
Joyce Carol Oates Joyce Carol Oates (born June 16, 1938) is an American writer. Oates published her first book in 1963, and has since published 58 novels, a number of plays and novellas, and many volumes of short stories, poetry, and nonfiction. Her novels ''Black ...
and
Isaac Bashevis Singer Isaac Bashevis Singer (; 1903 – July 24, 1991) was a Poland, Polish-born Jews, Jewish novelist, short-story writer, memoirist, essayist, and translator in the United States. Some of his works were adapted for the theater. He wrote and publish ...
.


Academic career

A specialist in
British literature British literature is from the United Kingdom, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islands. This article covers British literature in the English language. Anglo-Saxon (Old English) literature ...
of the 19th century, MacLeod taught English for three years at
Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a state university system, system of Public university, public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. The system has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration o ...
before accepting a post in 1969 at the
University of Windsor The University of Windsor (UWindsor, U of W, or UWin) is a public university, public research university in Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It is Canada's southernmost university. It has approximately 17,500 students. The university was incorporated by ...
where he taught English and creative writing for more than three decades. A story published after his death in the student newspaper called him "a dedicated professor, an approachable colleague, and an inspiration to young, local writers." It quoted Marty Gervais, one of his university colleagues, as saying that the door to MacLeod's cluttered office was always open to students, faculty and even members of the public. "It didn't matter whether you were a good writer or a bad writer; he was open to talking with you, he would read your work, he would be honest with you, and he would be encouraging as well," Gervais added. "He could talk your ear off with stories...but he was also a good listener." Alan Cumyn, who studied creative writing at the University of Windsor, remembered MacLeod as a teacher who placed great emphasis on the fundamentals of good writing such as language and
metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide, or obscure, clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are usually meant to cr ...
, character and conflict,
narrative structure Story structure or narrative structure is the recognizable or comprehensible way in which a narrative's different elements are unified, including in a particularly chosen order and sometimes specifically referring to the ordering of the plot: ...
and form. He wrote that MacLeod read student work carefully and always began his critiques by pointing to the best things about a story before turning to its weaknesses. "By the end," Cumyn wrote, "a story might seem in tatters, but in the oddly inspiring way that gifted teachers and editors have, issues and directions were made much clearer, and many of us felt more confident and enthusiastic about our work than we had going in." Another student, who attended an intensive writing workshop in
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, wrote that if something bothered MacLeod about a student story, he would simply say, "I have a question about that, but not a big one." If he noticed a glaring inconsistency, MacLeod would say, "Some words and phrases startle me." When a student asked how long a good short story should be, "MacLeod clasped his hands and looked up toward the ceiling as if in prayer, then responded in a lyrical Cape Breton accent. 'Well then. Well then. Just make your story as long as a piece of string, and it will work out just fine.'" MacLeod found that his university duties left little time for creative writing. "One time correcting all my papers and putting circles around ''their'' and ''there'' and ''they're''," he told a radio interviewer, "I began to think that maybe this wasn't the most worthwhile thing I should be doing with my life and so I said...I'm going to try to write like imaginatively or creatively for two hours a day." The experiment failed, however, because MacLeod found that by the end of each day, he was too worn out from his academic work to produce stories that were any good. So, he did most of his writing during the summer breaks when his family lived on the MacLeod homestead at Dunvegan,
Cape Breton Cape Breton Island (, formerly '; or '; ) is a rugged and irregularly shaped island on the Atlantic coast of North America and part of the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. The island accounts for 18.7% of Nova Scotia's total area. Although ...
. He would spend mornings there "writing in a cliff-top cabin looking west towards Prince Edward Island."


Published works and methods

MacLeod published only one novel and fewer than 20 short stories during his lifetime. Writing in longhand, he worked slowly refining his sentences until he found what he felt were just the right words. "I write a single sentence at a time," he once told an interviewer, "and then I read it aloud." Fellow Cape Breton writer Frank Macdonald described MacLeod as a perfectionist. "He wouldn't set a story free," Macdonald said, "until he was convinced that it was ready." He added that MacLeod never rewrote a story. "He wrote a sentence, and then waited, then wrote another sentence."Tom Ayers. "He always found the right word," ''The Chronicle-Herald'', April 21, 2014, p.A1. During a CBC Radio interview in 2011, MacLeod spoke about how he shaped his work. He explained that halfway through a story, he would write the final sentence. "I think of that as the last thing I'm going to say to the reader," he said. "I write it down and it serves as a lighthouse on the rest of my journey through the story." MacLeod's published works include the 1976 short story collection ''The Lost Salt Gift of Blood'' and the 1986 ''As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories''. The 14 stories in these two volumes appear in '' Island: The Collected Short Stories of Alistair MacLeod''. The book, which also contains two new stories, was released in 2000 the year after the publication of his successful first novel ''No Great Mischief''. When asked why, as a master short story writer, he had suddenly turned to the novel, MacLeod smiled and replied: "Well, nothing I do is very sudden. I think I just wanted more space. I needed a bus rather than a Volkswagen to put my people in." In 2004 MacLeod published an illustrated edition of his story, "To Everything There Is a Season" with the new heading of: "A Cape Breton Christmas Story". In October 2012, ''Remembrance'', a story commissioned by the Vancouver Writers Fest to mark its 25 anniversary, was published and sold there as a chapbook. MacLeod's books have been translated into 17 languages.


Critical reaction


Short stories

MacLeod's short stories have generated much critical acclaim, especially from Canadian reviewers. In her review of ''Island'', for example, Frances Itani calls the book of collected stories about miners, fishermen and Scottish Highlanders who came to Cape Breton "simply stunning." She also praises the stories for their emotional impact. "Whether you are reading his stories for the first or for the eighth time, they will make you wonder and they will make you weep. The quality of the writing matches the very best in the world." Itani describes "The Boat", MacLeod's first published story (1968) as possibly the most moving and powerful in Canadian literature. For her, all of the stories show a master craftsman at work. "Every story is expertly paced. The internal rhythm has been so perfected, the stories appear to unfold by themselves. There are no tricks; there is no visible or superimposed planning or plotting. Events unfold as unpredictably as life itself."Frances Itani. "Life work of a master: Alistair MacLeod's stories are among the best in the world." ''The Ottawa Citizen'', April 30, 2000, p.C14. The essayist Joshua Bodwell wrote about discovering MacLeod while traveling in Cape Breton just months before his first child was born, and then later reading "The Boat" aloud to her near her tenth birthday in his piece "The Great Salt Gift of Alistair MacLeod's "The Boat."" The English literary critic, James Wood, on the other hand, criticized what he saw as "a certain simplicity, even sentimentalism" in many of the stories in ''Island''. He also found some of them overly
melodrama A melodrama is a Drama, dramatic work in which plot, typically sensationalized for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodrama is "an exaggerated version of drama". Melodramas typically concentrate on ...
tic adding: "Several of MacLeod's stories have a quality of emotional genre-painting, and display a willingness to let the complexities of character die into
stereotype In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalization, generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can ...
. The men are white-haired and silent, the women dark-haired with sharp tongues." Although Wood conceded MacLeod's status as a writer, he pointed to certain flaws. "MacLeod is a distinguished writer, but his strengths are inseparable from his weaknesses: the sincerity that produces his sentimentality also stirs his work to a beautifully aroused plainness." Wood singles out one story, "The Tuning of Perfection", however, for its "complete lack of sentimentality." He writes that by delicately retrieving the past, MacLeod achieves a fineness removed from much contemporary North American fiction. He concludes that in this story, MacLeod "becomes only himself, provokingly singular and rare, an island of richness."


Novel

MacLeod's 1999 novel, ''No Great Mischief'' tells the story of the red-haired and dark-eyed MacDonald clan from 1779 when they left Scotland to settle in Cape Breton to more recent times. The judges, who awarded MacLeod the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2001, described the novel as "a story of families, and of the ties that bind us to them. It is also a story of exile and of the ties that bind us, generations later, to the land from which our ancestors came." They went on to predict that the quality of MacLeod's writing would soon make his name a household word. "The music of the Cape Breton rings throughout this book, by turns joyful and sad but always haunting. Written in a hypnotic, stately prose where every word is perfectly placed, 'No Great Mischief' has the same haunting effect, and shows why the master craftsman took more than ten years to write it." Those observations were echoed by many reviewers. In ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', for example, Thomas Mallon praised the book's lyricism and reported that "MacLeod's world of Cape Breton – with its Scottish fishermen and their displaced heirs, the miners and young professionals it has mournfully sent to the rest of the nation – has become a permanent part of my own inner library." Mallon's main criticism was that parts of the novel came across as heavy handed, lacking the deftness of MacLeod's short fiction. He ended, however, by noting that MacLeod's entire body of work would soon be published in the U.S. granting American readers "a new land that their imaginations can seize like a
manifest destiny Manifest destiny was the belief in the 19th century in the United States, 19th-century United States that American pioneer, American settlers were destined to expand westward across North America, and that this belief was both obvious ("''m ...
." In the British newspaper, ''The Observer'', Stephanie Merritt pointed out that when it was first published, ''No Great Mischief'' drew "unqualified praise" from the critics. Her review of the paperback edition concluded: "In its poetic and emotional range, this is one of the richest novels of recent years." The ''Globe and Mail's'' critic Kenneth J. Harvey heaped praise on both the book and its author: "The book has it all: beauty, tragedy, grittiness, humour, darkness, love, music, raunchiness, poetry and a glut of fully drawn, extraordinary characters whose words and deeds and circumstances compel the reader to laugh and blush and weep and swell with bighearted pride...MacLeod is MacLeod, the greatest living Canadian writer and one of the most distinguished writers in the world. No Great Mischief is the book of the year – and of this decade. It is a once-in-a-lifetime masterpiece."


Scholarly studies

MacLeod's fiction has been studied extensively by post-graduate students. Their master's and doctoral theses explore many aspects of his work including issues concerning regional and ethnic identity; the influence of island boundaries; magical thinking; and, the traditional roles of men and women. MacLeod's work has been compared and, in some cases contrasted, with other Canadian authors such as
David Adams Richards David Adams Richards (born 17 October 1950) is a Canadian writer and member of the Senate of Canada, Canadian Senate.Alden Nowlan, Wayne Johnston, Margaret Laurence,
Hugh MacLennan John Hugh MacLennan (March 20, 1907 – November 9, 1990) was a Canadian writer and professor of English at McGill University. He won five Governor General's Awards and a Royal Bank Award. Family and childhood MacLennan was born in Glace B ...
and Ann-Marie MacDonald.


Family

MacLeod was married for nearly 43 years to the former Anita MacLellan. She grew up in a house on Cape Breton Island that was just a couple of miles from his. They were married on September 4, 1971. They had seven children: six sons and a daughter, with one son dying in infancy. Their oldest son Alexander MacLeod is also a writer, whose debut short story collection ''Light Lifting'' was a
Scotiabank Giller Prize The Giller Prize (known as the Scotiabank Giller Prize from 2005-2023) is a literary award given to a Canadian author of a novel or short story collection published in English (including translation) the previous year, after an annual juried c ...
finalist in 2010.


Death

MacLeod died on April 20, 2014, after suffering a stroke in January 2014. He was 77. His Requiem Mass was held at St. Margaret of Scotland
Catholic Church The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
, in Broad Cove, near his home in
Dunvegan Dunvegan () is a village on the Isle of Skye in Scotland. It is famous for Dunvegan Castle, seat of the chiefs of Clan MacLeod. Dunvegan is within the parish of Duirinish, Skye, Duirinish. In 2011, it had a population of 386. Name In ''The Nors ...
. He was laid to rest in the nearby graveyard where generations of MacLeods are buried.


Film about MacLeod

He was the subject of a documentary film by the
National Film Board The National Film Board of Canada (NFB; ) is a Canadian public film and digital media producer and distributor. An agency of the Government of Canada, the NFB produces and distributes documentary films, animation, web documentaries, and altern ...
, ''Reading Alistair MacLeod'', released in 2005. The 88-minute film, directed by Bill MacGillivray, includes interviews with MacLeod, his wife Anita and other family members. Prominent writers such as
Russell Banks Russell Earl Banks (March 28, 1940 – January 8, 2023) was an American writer of fiction and poetry. His novels are known for "detailed accounts of domestic strife and the daily struggles of ordinary often-marginalized characters". He drew from ...
,
Colm Tóibín Colm Tóibín ( , ; born 30 May 1955) is an Irish novelist, short story writer, essayist, journalist, critic, playwright and poet. His first novel, ''The South (novel), The South'', was published in 1990. ''The Blackwater Lightship'' was short ...
and
David Adams Richards David Adams Richards (born 17 October 1950) is a Canadian writer and member of the Senate of Canada, Canadian Senate.No Great Mischief'' won several awards including the International Dublin Literary Award, the
Trillium Book Award The Trillium Book Award ( or ''Prix Trillium'') is an annual literary award presented to writers in Ontario, Canada. It is administered by Ontario Creates, a Crown agency (Ontario), Crown agency of the Government of Ontario, which is overseen by ...
, the Thomas Head Raddall Award, the Dartmouth Book & Writing Award for Fiction, the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Awards for author of the year as well as fiction book of the year (2000) and the Atlantic Provinces Booksellers' Choice Award. In 2009, ''No Great Mischief'' was voted Atlantic Canada's greatest book. MacLeod won the Portia White Prize in 2001. The prize, awarded by the Province of Nova Scotia, honours artistic excellence and achievement. In 2003, he won the Lannan Literary Award for fiction. In 2008, MacLeod was named an Officer of the
Order of Canada The Order of Canada () is a Canadian state order, national order and the second-highest Award, honour for merit in the system of orders, decorations, and medals of Canada, after the Order of Merit. To coincide with the Canadian Centennial, ce ...
, the same year he became a Fellow of the
Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; , SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bilingual council of distinguishe ...
. In 2009, MacLeod received the PEN/Malamud Award for Short Fiction along with Amy Hempel. In 2015, MacLeod was awarded the Order of Nova Scotia. MacLeod has been awarded more than a dozen honorary degrees including ones from his alma mater, St. Francis Xavier University,
Cape Breton University Cape Breton University (CBU) is a public university located in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada. It is the only post-secondary degree-granting institution within the Cape Breton Regional Municipality and on Cape Breton Island. The university is enabl ...
,
McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...
and the University of Prince Edward Island.


References


External links

* Archives of Alistair MacLeo
(Alistair MacLeod fonds, R14298)
are held at
Library and Archives Canada Library and Archives Canada (LAC; ) is the federal institution tasked with acquiring, preserving, and providing accessibility to the documentary heritage of Canada. The national archive and library is the 16th largest library in the world. T ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macleod, Alistair 1936 births 2014 deaths 20th-century Canadian male writers 20th-century Canadian novelists 20th-century Canadian short story writers 21st-century Canadian male writers 21st-century Canadian short story writers Canadian Gaelic Canadian male novelists Canadian male short story writers Canadian people of Scottish descent Canadian Roman Catholics Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Indiana University faculty Nova Scotia Teachers College alumni Officers of the Order of Canada PEN/Malamud Award winners People from Inverness County, Nova Scotia People from North Battleford Scottish-Canadian culture St. Francis Xavier University alumni University of New Brunswick alumni University of Notre Dame alumni Academic staff of University of Windsor Novelists from Nova Scotia Writers from Windsor, Ontario Members of the Order of Nova Scotia Novelists from Ontario Novelists from Saskatchewan