Austin Clarke

Austin Clarke studied at University of Toronto, Combermere School and Harrison College. The recorded working language is English. Places of work recorded in the authority are Toronto. Employment is recorded with Concordia University. Works named in the authority record are The Polished Hoe. Distinctions recorded are Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Order of Ontario, Member of the Order of Canada and Giller Prize.

• Name — Austin Clarke • Honorific Suffix — OOnt • Birth Name — Austin Ardinel Chesterfield Clarke • Born — 26 July 1934 • Birthplace — St. James, Barbados • Died — 26 June 2016 • Place of death — Toronto, Ontario, Canada • Education — Trinity College, Toronto • Occupation — * Novelist • short story writer • essayist • Period — 1960s–2016 • Notable Works — The Polished Hoe (2002)

Austin Clarke was born in 1934 in St. James, Barbados, where he received his early education in Anglican schools. He taught at a rural school for three years. In 1955, he moved to Canada and attended the University of Toronto's Trinity College for two years.

Clarke was a reporter at the Timmins Daily Press and the Globe and Mail, before joining the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a freelance journalist. He subsequently taught at several American universities, including Yale University (Hoyt fellow, 1968–1970), Duke University (1971–1972), and the University of Texas (Visiting Professor, 1973) and helped establish black studies programs at several universities. In 1973, he was designated cultural attaché at the Barbadian embassy in Washington, DC, and later became General Manager of the Caribbean Broadcasting Corporation in Barbados (1975–1977). He was Writer-in-Residence at Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec (1977), and at the University of Western Ontario (1978). He became a Canadian citizen in 1981. From 1988 to 1993, he served on the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. He was not the first Canadian writer of African origin with that distinction belonging to 19th-century author Amelia E. Johnson. However, George Elliott Clarke says that Clarke was "the author of African descent in English, in Canada, that anyone who was interested in being a writer would have to be aware of and challenge as well." In September 2012, at the International Festival of Authors, Clarke was announced as the winner of the $10,000 Harbourfront Festival Prize "on the merits of his published work and efforts in fostering literary talent in new and aspiring writers". Previous recipients of the award (established in 1984) include: Dionne Brand, Wayson Choy, Christopher Dewdney, Helen Humphreys, Paul Quarrington, Peter Robinson, Seth, Jane Urquhart, and Guy Vanderhaeghe. Clarke was reported as saying: "I rejoiced when I saw that Authors at Harbourfront Centre had named me this year's winner of the Harbourfront Festival Prize. I did not come to this city on September 29, 1959, as a writer. I came as a student. However, my career as a writer buried any contention of being a scholar and I thank Authors at Harbourfront Centre for saving me from the more painful life of the "gradual student". It is an honour to be part of such a prestigious list of authors." An outspoken intellectual, he avoided talking about multiculturalism, hoping that his own term ' omniculturalism could be accepted by people from both the political left and right. He ran as a Progressive Conservative candidate in the 1977 Ontario general election. Clarke died on June 26, 2016, at the age of 81, in Toronto.

• The Survivors of the Crossing (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1964) • Amongst Thistles and Thorns (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1965) • The Meeting Point (Toronto: Macmillan, 1967; Boston: Little, Brown, 1972) • Storm of Fortune (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973) • The Bigger Light (Boston: Little, Brown, 1975) • The Prime Minister (Don Mills, Ont.: General Publishing, 1977) • Proud Empires (London: Gollancz, 1986; Penguin-Viking, 1988) • The Origin of Waves (McClelland & Stewart, 1997; winner of the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize) • The Question (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1999; nominated for a Governor General's Award) • The Polished Hoe (Toronto: Thomas Allen, 2002; winner of the Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize) • More (2008, winner of the City of Toronto Book Award)

• Where the Sun Shines Best (Toronto: Guernica Editions, 2013) • In Your Crib (Toronto: Guernica Editions, 2015)

• Growing Up Stupid Under the Union Jack: a Memoir (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1980; Thomas Allen, 2005) • "A Stranger In A Strange Land", The Globe and Mail, Toronto, 15 August 1990, p. 30. • Public Enemies: Police Violence and Black Youth (Toronto: HarperCollins, 1992) • A Passage Back Home: A Personal Reminiscence of Samuel Selvon (Toronto: Exile Editions, 1994) • Pigtails 'n Breadfruit: A Culinary Memoir (New Press, 1999); as Pigtails 'n' Breadfruit: The Rituals of Slave Food, A Barbadian Memoir (Toronto: Random House, 1999; University of Toronto Press, 2001); Pig Tails 'n' Breadfruit - Anniversary Edition (Ian Randle Publishers, 2014) • Love and Sweet Food: A Culinary Memoir (Toronto: Thomas Allen, 2004) • ′Membering (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 2015)

Austin Clarke is recorded as having received Commonwealth Writers' Prize, Order of Ontario and Member of the Order of Canada.