Donald Winkler (born 1940) is a Canadian documentary filmmaker and French-to-English literary translator. He lives in Montreal with his wife Sheila Fischman.

Life and career

Early life

Winkler was born in

Winnipeg Winnipeg () is the capital and largest city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Manitoba. It is centred on the confluence of the Red River of the North, Red and Assiniboine River, Assiniboine rivers. , Winnipeg h ...

, Manitoba and grew up loving theatre. He was introduced to French through his mother who studied the language in

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

before coming to Canada when she was fifteen years old. As a student, he took French courses alongside his literary studies at the

University of Manitoba The University of Manitoba (U of M, UManitoba, or UM) is a public research university in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. Founded in 1877, it is the first university of Western Canada. Both by total student enrolment and campus area, the University of ...

where he graduated in 1961. He also went on to do graduate studies at the

Yale School of Drama The David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University is a graduate professional school of Yale University, located in New Haven, Connecticut. Founded in 1924 as the Department of Drama in the School of Fine Arts, the school provides training in ...

. In his early twenties, he spent a year and a half in Paris teaching English where he enjoyed watching films at the Cinématheque and the little

Latin Quarter The Latin Quarter of Paris (, ) is an urban university campus in the 5th and the 6th arrondissements of Paris. It is situated on the left bank of the Seine, around the Sorbonne. Known for its student life, lively atmosphere, and bistros, t ...

art houses. When he returned to Canada, he was drawn to Montreal because, for him, it was "the only city in the country at that time cosmopolitan enough". The city was also the headquarters for the

National Film Board of Canada 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 ...

, where Winkler first began making films. He applied for an apprenticeship position that did not require film experience and was hired in 1967 when one of the three initial applicants declined the offer. He learned the trade on the job and within a couple of years, began working on his first film.

Film career

Winkler has been an independent filmmaker since leaving the National Film Board where he worked as a documentary film director and writer from 1967 to 1995. His films primarily deal with the arts and culture in Canada. He wrote and directed a number of films that look into the lives of Canadian playwrights, writers and musicians such as

Irving Layton Irving Peter Layton, OC (March 12, 1912 – January 4, 2006) was a Romanian-born Canadian poet. He was known for his "tell it like it is" style which won him a wide following but also made him enemies. As T. Jacobs notes in his biography (2001 ...

F. R. Scott Francis Reginald Scott (1899–1985), commonly known as Frank Scott or F. R. Scott, was a lawyer, Canadian poet, intellectual, and constitutional scholar. He helped found the first Canadian social democratic party, the Co-operative Commonw ...

P. K. Page Patricia Kathleen Page, (23 November 1916 – 14 January 2010) was a Canadian poet,Peter ScowenP.K. Page dies at age 93 ''The Globe and Mail'', 14 January 2010. Retrieved 15 January 2010. though the citation as she was inducted as a Fellow of th ...

Al Purdy Alfred Wellington Purdy (December 30, 1918 – April 21, 2000) was a 20th-century Canadian free verse poet. Purdy's writing career spanned fifty-six years. His works include thirty-nine books of poetry; a novel; two volumes of memoirs and four ...

Earle Birney Earle Alfred Birney (13 May 1904 – 3 September 1995) was a Canadian poet and novelist, who twice won the Governor General's Award, Canada's top literary honour, for his poetry. Life Born in Calgary in the North-West Territories' District o ...

Ralph Gustafson Ralph Barker Gustafson, CM (16 August 1909 – 29 May 1995) was a Canadian poet and professor at Bishop's University. Biography He was born in Lime Ridge, near Dudswell, Quebec on August 16, 1909. His mother was British, his father, Carl ...

and

Tomson Highway Tomson Highway (born 6 December 1951) is an Indigenous peoples in Canada, Indigenous Canadian playwright, novelist, children's author and musician. He is best known for his plays ''The Rez Sisters'' and ''Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing'', ...

. In the year 2005, he entered his three films: ''Moshe Safdie: The Power of Architecture'', ''The Pines of Emily Carr'' and ''The Colour of Memory: Conversations with Guido Molinari'' into the International Festival of Films on Art in Montreal. In 1993, his documentary film '' Breaking a Leg: Robert Lepage and the Echo Project'' was a

Genie Award The Genie Awards were given out annually by the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television to recognize the best of Canadian cinema from 1980–2012. They succeeded the Canadian Film Awards (1949–1978), known as the "Etrog Awards" for sculptor ...

nominee for Best Short Documentary at the

14th Genie Awards The 14th Genie Awards were held on December 12, 1993 to honour Canadian films release in 1992. This year's event was dominated by two Vancouver productions: Paul Shapiro (director), Paul Shapiro's ''The Lotus Eaters (film), The Lotus Eaters'', and ...

Translation

Winkler first began translating

Quebec literature This is an article about literature in Quebec. 16th and 17th centuries During this period, the society of New France was being built with great difficulty. The French merchants contracted to transport colonists did not respect their end of t ...

in the late 1980s. Although he never studied translation, he has since translated over 25 works including novels, poetry and essays. He is a member of the

Literary Translators' Association of Canada The Literary Translators' Association of Canada (LTAC) (or, in French language, French, ''Association des traducteurs et traductrices littéraires du Canada'' (ATTLC)) is an association of literary translation, translators from across Canada. The ...

Carmine Starnino Carmine Starnino is a Canadians, Canadian poet, essayist, educator and editing, editor. Biography He was born in 1970 in Montreal, Quebec, into an Italian people, Italian heritage. His first poetry collection ''The New World'' (1997) was nomina ...

describes Winkler as "one of anada'smost gifted and highly decorated practitioners." Winkler describes the process of translation as "a constant quest for perfect pitch" and a "sophisticated word game". A successful translation, in his words, gives readers "some sense of what it's like to be in another culture's skin". His translations have been described as "seamless" and "wonderful". Sheila Fischman, his spouse, is also an award-winning translator. He describes her as the "doyenne of Canadian literary translation".

Awards and nominations

Donald Winker has won the

Governor General's Award The Governor General's Awards are a collection of annual awards presented by the governor general of Canada, recognizing distinction in numerous academic, artistic, and social fields. The first award was conceived and inaugurated in 1937 by the ...

for Translation three times: * in 1994, for ''The Lyric Generation: The Life and Times of the Baby-Boomers'' by

François Ricard François Ricard (4 June 1947 – 17 February 2022) was a Canadian writer and academic from Quebec.Pierre Nepveu Pierre Nepveu (born 16 September 1946 in Montreal, Quebec) is a French Canadian poet, novelist and essayist. As a scholar, he specializes in modern Quebec poetry, in particular the work of Gaston Miron. He taught at the French Studies Depar ...

. His work was also nominated for the Governor General's Award on three separate occasions. Donald Winkler was nominated for the

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 co ...

twice: * in 2007, for ''A Secret Between Us'' by

Daniel Poliquin Daniel Poliquin (born December 18, 1953) is a Canadian novelist and translator. He has translated works of various Canadian writers into French, including David Homel, Douglas Glover, and Mordecai Richler. Poliquin and his hometown of Ottawa ar ...

, * and in 2015, for ''Arvida'' by Samuel Archibald In addition, he won the Quebec Writers' Federation's Cole Foundation Translation Prize for his translation of ''The Major Verbs'' by

Pierre Nepveu Pierre Nepveu (born 16 September 1946 in Montreal, Quebec) is a French Canadian poet, novelist and essayist. As a scholar, he specializes in modern Quebec poetry, in particular the work of Gaston Miron. He taught at the French Studies Depar ...

, and in 1987, he received an honorable mention at the

's John Glassco Prize for Literary Translation for his translation entitled ''Rose and Thorn'': ''The Selected Poetry by Roland Giguère''. Winkler's translation of ''Arvida'' by Samuel Archibald was also

short-listed A short list or shortlist is a list of candidates for a job, prize, award, political position, etc., that has been reduced from a longer list of candidates (sometimes via intermediate lists known as "long lists"). The length of short lists varie ...

for the 2016

Best Translated Book Award The Best Translated Book Award was an American literary award that recognized the previous year's best original translation into English, one book of poetry and one of fiction. It was inaugurated in 2008 and was conferred by Three Percent, the onl ...

List of Translations

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Winkler, Donald 1940 births Canadian documentary film directors National Film Board of Canada people 20th-century Canadian male writers 20th-century Canadian translators Governor General's Award–winning translators Living people Film directors from Winnipeg Film directors from Montreal University of Manitoba alumni David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University alumni Anglophone Quebec people 21st-century Canadian male writers 21st-century Canadian translators