Michael Crummey

Picture: Canadian Books and Authors

Poet and fiction writer Michael Crummey was born in a small town in Newfoundland. He was originally educated at Memorial University and got his Master's from Queens. A young poet and short story writer in 1994, he won the Bronwen Wallace Award for Emerging Writers.

In 1998 Crummey's story was selected for the Journey Prize Anthology, and he published the short story collection Flesh and Blood. In 2004 he co-authored a non-fiction book about Newfoundland with photo-journalist Greg Locke.

His first novel, River Thieves (2001) features the conflict between the colonizers and the Beothuk, a native group driven to extinction by the arrival of the European settlers. A national bestseller, this novel was nominated for the Giller Prize. In 2005, The Wreckage (Random House) came out to great acclaim. A national bestseller, it was selected as one of the Globe and Mail top 100 books and nominated for the Rogers Writers's Trust Fiction Prize.

Crummey's most recent novel, Galore (Random House 2010), is his attempt to portray the "cultural DNA" that is rooted in the fabled world of Newfoundland's rural, isolated and "medieval" oral culture, which still lies just below the surface. This book was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and four other prestigious awards. It also won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Canada and the Caribbean as well as the Canadian Authors' Association. It's a fantastic read.