Guy Gavriel Kay

Kay is also a qualified lawyer in Canada.

Guy Gavriel Kay studied at Henry N.R. Jackman Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba and Grant Park High School. The recorded working language is English. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are speculative fiction. Works named in the authority record are The Summer Tree, Tigana, The Lions of Al-Rassan, The Last Light of the Sun and Ysabel. Distinctions recorded are Member of the Order of Canada and World Fantasy Award for Best Novel.

• Name — Guy Gavriel Kay • Honorific Suffix — CM • Born — 7 November 1954 • Birthplace — Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada • Occupation — Writer • Education — * University of Manitoba (BA) • University of Toronto (LLB) • Period — 1984–present • Genre — * Fantasy • scriptwriting • poetry • Notable Works — * The Fionavar Tapestry • Tigana • Website — brightweavings.com

Kay was born in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, in 1954. His father, a doctor, was a Jewish immigrant from Poland, and his mother was an artist. He was raised and educated in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and received a bachelor's degree in philosophy from the University of Manitoba in 1975. When Christopher Tolkien needed an assistant to edit his father J. R. R. Tolkien's unpublished work, he chose Kay, then a student of philosophy at the University of Manitoba, because of a family connection. Kay moved to Oxford in 1974 to assist Christopher in editing The Silmarillion. Kay returned to Canada in 1975 to pursue a law degree at the University of Toronto, which he obtained in 1978; he was called to the bar of Ontario in 1981. Kay became principal writer and an associate producer for the CBC Radio series The Scales of Justice, and continued as principal writer when the series transferred to television as Scales of Justice. Kay's first novel, the portal fantasy The Summer Tree, which serves as the first volume of his Fionavar Tapestry trilogy, was published in 1984 by Susan Allison at Penguin Publishing Group. He subsequently had many other novels published, most of them in the field of historical fantasy. Kay has voiced concerns relative to the decline of individual privacy, the expectation of privacy, and literary privacy. The last principally has to do with the use of real individuals in works of fiction, such as Michael Cunningham's The Hours, partly based on the life of Virginia Woolf, where Woolf features in the novel as a protagonist.

Novels marked with an asterisk are set in the same world at various points in its history. • The Fionavar Tapestry, a portal fantasy in which five travel from the Earth to "the first of all worlds" • The Summer Tree (1984) • The Wandering Fire (1986), winner of the 1987 Prix Aurora Award • The Darkest Road (1986) • Tigana (1990), taking place in a setting based on Renaissance Italy • A Song for Arbonne (1992), inspired by the Albigensian Crusade in medieval Provence • The Lions of Al-Rassan * (1995), set in an analogue of medieval Spain • The Sarantine Mosaic, * inspired by the Byzantium of Justinian I • Sailing to Sarantium (1998) • Lord of Emperors (2000) • The Last Light of the Sun * (2004), inspired by the Viking invasions during the reign of Alfred the Great • Ysabel (2007), a contemporary fantasy set in Provence, centering on a teenage boy and his encounters with characters from the distant past. Linked to his Fionavar Tapestry series. • Under Heaven (April 27, 2010), inspired by the 8th-century Tang dynasty and the events leading up to the An Shi Rebellion • River of Stars (April 2, 2013), taking place in the same setting as Under Heaven, based on the 12th-century Song dynasty and the events around the Jin-Song Wars and the transition from Northern Song to Southern Song • Children of Earth and Sky * (May 10, 2016), taking place in a world based on Venice, Istanbul and the Balkans in the 15th century • A Brightness Long Ago * (May 14, 2019), prequel to Children of Earth and Sky inspired by 15th-century Italy during the Italian Wars and particularly the feud between Federico da Montefeltro and Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta. • All the Seas of the World * (May 17, 2022), sequel to A Brightness Long Ago, based upon the wars between Christendom and the Ottoman Empire in the early 16th-century Mediterranean. • Written on the Dark * (May 25, 2025). Set before Kay's previous three novels, the story is drawn from Hundred Years' War-era France and its conflicts with Henry V of England and Burgundy.

• Beyond This Dark House (2003), a collection

• Several nominations for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award in the category of Adult Literature. • Four nominations for the World Fantasy Award, won in 2008 for Ysabel. • Multiple nominations for the Sunburst Award.

Guy Gavriel Kay is classed in the genre speculative fiction. Recorded with the occupation writer. Recorded with the occupation lawyer. Recorded as having studied at Henry N.R. Jackman Faculty of Law, University of Manitoba and Grant Park High School. Work and production. Works recorded as notable number 5: The Summer Tree, Tigana, The Lions of Al-Rassan, The Last Light of the Sun and Ysabel. His recorded genre is speculative fiction.