TORONTO, March 13, 2001 – Cape Breton author Alistair MacLeod, a finalist for the prestigious IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, will read from his award-winning novel No Great Mischief (McClelland & Stewart, 1999) at York University, Thursday, March 15, 7:30 p.m.

MacLeod’s novel – a multi-generational story of a Scottish immigrant family whose men travel from Cape Breton to Northern Ontario and Saskatchewan working in Canada’s mines – is one of six short-listed for the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, the world’s richest book prize valued at $172,000 Cdn. The winner will be announced on May 14 at Dublin Castle.

MacLeod’s reading is part of York University’s Canadian Writers in Person reading series, a first-year English course and the brainchild of York Professor John Unrau. The course gives students the unique opportunity to listen to and quiz 12 invited authors who have written the very fiction and poetry they are studying. The readings are open to the public.

Unrau says MacLeod’s writing is 100 per cent Canadian, yet of truly international stature, likening MacLeod to the late English novelist, Graham Greene. Greene was largely responsible for establishing the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. "MacLeod's writing manifests a similar combination of lyricism and toughness, delivered in language of untainted clarity," says Unrau. "His work fits perfectly into a course which informs students from the outset that ‘theory’ will be kept to a minimum in the interests of literature."

Prior to No Great Mischief, MacLeod’s literary output consisted of two masterful collections of short stories, The Lost Salt Gift of Blood (1976) and As Birds Bring Forth the Sun (1986). No Great Mischief has won two Canadian Bookseller Awards and Ontario’s Trillium Award. His most recent book Island: The Complete Stories (McClelland & Stewart, 2000) is a re-issue of all the author's previously published short stories, together with new work.

MacLeod was born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan in 1936 and raised among an extended family in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. He worked as a miner and logger to finance his education. After getting his PhD from the University of Notre Dame in 1968, he taught at Indiana University and then moved to the University of Windsor in 1969 where he was a Professor of English and Creative Writing until his recent retirement. He has also worked alongside Canadian author W.O. Mitchell at the Banff Centre, inspiring future generations of writers. He returns to Cape Breton each summer to write.

The Canadian Writers in Person reading series is sponsored by York's Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies, with the support of the Canada Council, the Writers' Union of Canada, and a dozen other benefactors. MacLeod’s reading will take place in Stedman Lecture Hall ‘D’, York University, 4700 Keele Street.

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For more information, please contact:

Prof. John Unrau
Atkinson Faculty of Liberal and Professional Studies
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 33893
junrau@yorku.ca

Ken Turriff
Media Relations
York University
(416) 736-2100, ext. 22086
kturriff@yorku.ca
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