Alistair MacLeod

Colin Nicholson (University of Edinburgh)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.2: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): The Twentieth Century and beyond, 1900-present.
Vol. editors: Sarah Henzi (Simon Fraser University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia)

Dates

Born 20 Jul 1936
Died 20 Apr 2014
Activity c. 1956-c. 2014

Places

Born in Canada
Active in Canada

Activities

Primary

Story-writer

Resources

MacLeod's Works

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Alistair MacLeod was born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada in 1936 and was four years old when his parents moved to Alberta where his father worked as a miner. By the age of ten he was living on a farm on Cape Breton Island to which his family had returned, and there MacLeod grew up as one of the first generation of Nova Scotians not to be Gaelic speaking. After first training as a schoolteacher he enrolled at Francis Xavier University in 1957, graduating three years later with a B.A. and B.Ed., and financing his education by working at different times as a logger, miner and fisherman. Five of his uncles were also mineworkers. In 1961 he received an M.A. from the University of New Brunswick and in 1968, the year his first (and prize-winning) story “The Boat” was published,…

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1601 words

Citation: Nicholson, Colin. "Alistair MacLeod". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 24 November 2001; last revised 06 November 2018. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2866, accessed 23 November 2024.]