Nationalism a recurring theme for acclaimed writer
Known for his honest, captivating writing, Guy Vanderhaeghe turned his love of history into books capturing the essence of Saskatchewan and the people who have called it home.
Born on April 5, 1951, in Esterhazy, Vanderhaeghe credits the community as the place where he awoke to the idea of Canadian nationalism, which would become a common theme throughout his writing. Those stories pushed Vanderhaeghe, and the province, onto the international stage of literature, nabbing him his first of three Governor General’s Awards for Literature and a Faber Prize in Britain.
Vanderhaeghe followed Man Descending with three more collections of short stories, two plays and five novels, even making a cameo in the miniseries adaptation of his Governor General’s Award-winning novel The Englishman’s Boy.
After his first win in 1982, the awards never stopped; Vanderhaeghe scooped up a variety of honours, including the Lieutenant-Governor’s Arts Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts, the Saskatchewan Order of Merit, the Order of Canada and a fellowship of the Royal Society of Canada.
In 2015, his status as a Canadian literary icon was cemented when he won his third Governor General’s Award for Daddy Lenin and Other Stories, putting him in an exclusive club with only three others who have succeeded in winning the Governor General’s Award hat trick.
“It’s a nice bookend, right? If you’ve done this as long as I’ve done it, you’d like to be rewarded for what you have learned,” he told The StarPhoenix after his win.
Vanderhaeghe continues to live and work in Saskatoon.