Linda Jane Leith is a

Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...

-based writer, translator, and publisher.

Biography

Leith was born in

Belfast, Northern Ireland Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

, when her family was living in the linen town of Lisburn. After elementary and secondary schooling in London and Basel, Switzerland, she moved to Montreal with her family as an adolescent. She graduated from McGill University in Montreal in 1970, and then studied in Paris and was awarded her PhD from Queen Mary College of the University of London in 1975. A member of the Department of English at

John Abbott College John Abbott College ( French: ''Collège John Abbott)'' is an English-language public college located in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec, Canada, near the western tip of the Island of Montreal. John Abbott College is one of eight English publ ...

Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue () is an Greater Montreal, on-island suburb located at the western tip of the Island of Montreal in southwestern Quebec, Canada. It is the second oldest community in Montreal's West Island, having been founded as a parish ...

, Quebec, 1976–2000, Leith has also taught at Concordia University and at McGill University in Montreal. In 1990, she spent two years in Budapest, Hungary, with her Hungarian-born first husband and their children. It was here where she wrote her first novel. The founder of Blue Metropolis Foundation, she spent fourteen years as president and artistic director of

Blue Metropolis Blue Metropolis (also known as Blue Met) is an international literary festival held annually in Montreal. Founded in 1999 by Montreal writer Linda Leith, it is considered the world's first multilingual literary festival. The festival is put on ...

, the first multilingual literary festival in the world. Leith stepped aside from Blue Metropolis in 2010 and founded a literary publishing company, Linda Leith Publishing and the online literary forum Salon .ll. in 2011. She is the author, most recently, of ''The Girl from Dream City: A Literary Life'', published by the University of Regina Press in April 2021. Earlier works of nonfiction works include the literary history ''Writing in the Time of Nationalism'', which ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

'' called "a very fine book," "written in clear, exhilarating prose," and ''Marrying Hungary'', as well as Introducing Hugh MacLennan's ''Two Solitudes.'' She is the author of three novels: ''Birds of Passage'' (1993), ''The Tragedy Queen'' (1995), and ''The Desert Lake'' (2007) all published by Signature Editions. She was awarded the Quebec Writers' Federation Community Award in 2003 and Canada's Commissioner of Official Languages' first

Award of Excellence – Promotion of Linguistic Duality The Award of Excellence – Promotion of Linguistic Duality (also called the Award of Excellence for the Promotion of Linguistic Duality) is given annually by Canada's Office of the Commissioner of Official Languages, Commissioner of Official Langua ...

, in 2009. She was awarded the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal for her "contribution to Canada" in 2012 and in 2020 was appointed 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 ...

Bibliography

Novels

* ''Birds of Passage'', Signature Editions, 1993 * ''The Tragedy Queen'', Signature Editions, 1995 (translated into French by Agnès Guitard, as ''Un Amour de Salomé'', XYZ, 2002) * ''The Desert Lake'', Signature Editions, 2007

Non-fiction

* ''Marrying Hungary'', Signature Editions, 2008 (translated into French by Aline Apostolska, as ''Épouser la Hongrie'', Leméac, 2004; translated into Serbian by Aleksandra Mančić, as ''U braku sa Mađarskom'', Rad, 2005) * ''Writing in the Time of Nationalism: From Two Solitudes to Blue Metropolis'', Signature Editions, 2010 (translated into French by Alain Roy, as ''Écrire au temps du nationalisme'', Leméac, 2014) * ''The Girl from Dream City: A Literary Life'', University of Regina Press, 2021.

References

Black, Barbara. "Linda Leith turns a page in her literary career." ''Concordia University Journal'' 11 October, 2007.Lemay, Daniel. "Linda Leith, militante du rapprochement." ''La Presse'' 3 May, 2014.

External links

*
Blue Metropolis FoundationLinda Leith PublishingSignature Editions: authors: Linda Leith

{{DEFAULTSORT:Leith, Linda Canadian women novelists 20th-century Canadian novelists Anglophone Quebec people Canadian women essayists 21st-century Canadian novelists 20th-century Canadian women writers 21st-century Canadian women writers Emigrants from Northern Ireland to Canada Officers of the Order of Canada Living people 20th-century Canadian essayists 21st-century Canadian essayists Year of birth missing (living people) Women memoirists from Northern Ireland 21st-century memoirists from Northern Ireland Canadian women memoirists Novelists from Montreal