Fiche Personne
Littérature / édition
© Neil Bissoondath
Neil Bissoondath
Ecrivain/ne
Canada, Trinité-et-Tobago
© Neil Bissoondath
English
As every profile ever written about Neil Bissoondath has been sure to point out, the author is the nephew of V.S. Naipaul, the brilliant (and notoriously prickly) winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize for literature. Bissoondath was born in 1955, in the Trinidadian city of Arima, into a bookish family with Indian roots and a middle-class status that had been gained relatively recently – Bissoondath’s grandparents had laboured in the rice and sugar fields. The boy’s mother, Naipaul’s sister, encouraged him in his reading from a young age; one of the earliest gifts she gave him was a book of Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales. “Uncle Vido” also provided inspiration and encouragement, and was instrumental in his nephew’s decision to move to Canada for university in 1973.
In 1977, Bissoondath graduated from Toronto’s York University with a degree in French literature, subsequently landing a teaching job at a local language school. At the same time, he was beginning in earnest to write fiction, in keeping with his dream of following in Uncle Vido’s footsteps. In this respect, the school served him well – his fellow teachers would read and comment on the short stories he was writing in his off hours, while his students (many of whom were, like himself, recent immigrants) passed along personal tales that became fodder for several early pieces. He also met his future wife, Anne, there – she was a Quebecois law student looking to brush up on her English.
Bissoondath’s first big career break came in 1985, when his debut collection of short stories, Digging Up the Mountain, was picked up by Macmillan Canada and published to glowing reviews. It was in 1988, however, that the author hit it big. A Casual Brutality, his first novel, was snapped up by publishers in Canada, the U.S., and Britain, garnering over 0,000 in advances. The book told the story of an immigrant to Canada from a fictional, politically unstable Caribbean country called Casquemeda, and presented a tough portrait of both societies.
Since then, the author has done much to earn the admiration of his fellow BookExpo luminaries, publishing five more works of fiction (four novels and another book of stories) that cover a range of topics and locales, both within and outside Canada, frequently setting characters’ personal troubles against the backdrop of larger-scale societal strife.
From: http://www.quillandquire.com/authors/hard-questions/
In 1977, Bissoondath graduated from Toronto’s York University with a degree in French literature, subsequently landing a teaching job at a local language school. At the same time, he was beginning in earnest to write fiction, in keeping with his dream of following in Uncle Vido’s footsteps. In this respect, the school served him well – his fellow teachers would read and comment on the short stories he was writing in his off hours, while his students (many of whom were, like himself, recent immigrants) passed along personal tales that became fodder for several early pieces. He also met his future wife, Anne, there – she was a Quebecois law student looking to brush up on her English.
Bissoondath’s first big career break came in 1985, when his debut collection of short stories, Digging Up the Mountain, was picked up by Macmillan Canada and published to glowing reviews. It was in 1988, however, that the author hit it big. A Casual Brutality, his first novel, was snapped up by publishers in Canada, the U.S., and Britain, garnering over 0,000 in advances. The book told the story of an immigrant to Canada from a fictional, politically unstable Caribbean country called Casquemeda, and presented a tough portrait of both societies.
Since then, the author has done much to earn the admiration of his fellow BookExpo luminaries, publishing five more works of fiction (four novels and another book of stories) that cover a range of topics and locales, both within and outside Canada, frequently setting characters’ personal troubles against the backdrop of larger-scale societal strife.
From: http://www.quillandquire.com/authors/hard-questions/
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