SANDRA BIRDSELL, among Canada's finest fiction writers, was born in Manitoba, and lived for many years in Winnipeg. Her novel The Russländer was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and her bestselling novel Children of the Day was longlisted for the DUBLIN Literary Award and won the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction. She is also the author of three collections of short stories. She lives in Regina.
SELECT AWARDS
-The Russländer; nominated for the 2001 Giller Prize
-The Two-Headed Calf; nominated for the 1997 Governor General’s
Award for Fiction
-The Town That Floated Away (YA Fiction); nominated for the 2000
Red Cedar Award and 2000 Silver Birch Award
-1993 Marion Engel Award (Canada’s prestigious recognition for
women writers in mid-career)
-The Chrome Suite; nominated for the 1992 Governor General’ s Award
for Fiction
-The Missing Child; 1990 W.H. Smith/Books in Canada First Novel
Award
“Utterly gripping ... a historical novel that reminds us how the
past, and especially the violent past, can never be repressed …
Birdsell has been publishing fiction to national acclaim for some
25 years, and all her gifts are on display here.”
–The Globe and Mail
“Birdsell’s skill at tapping the mindset of Sara and Oliver and the
various Vandal children is masterful … The uncanny, precise
detailing of daily life highlights the tight seal of tension that
clings to every moment … Children of the Day contains a compelling,
palpable loveliness. Birdsell’s strength as a storyteller is her
ability to excavate hope from ruin.”
–Toronto Star
“By zeroing in on one couple, one family, one day, Birdsell is able
to deal with decades of history and loss in a haunting portrait
both human and geographical. A stunning portrait … the characters
are brilliantly drawn and achingly real.”
–National Post
“An earthy, vivid portrait of a family coping with the messy
business of life. It’s also a brilliant portrait of a country in
the making.”
–Time
“There’s nary a false note in Children of the Day … of stories such
as this was the history of the prairies woven, one family at a
time. Skillful and satisfying.”
–Montreal Gazette
"Mennonites. Metis. Massacre. Marvellous"
—Globe and Mail
“It’s an earthy, vivid portrait of a family coping with the messy
business of life. It’s also a brilliant portrait of a country in
the making.”
—TIME Magazine
Praise for Sandra Birdsell:
"Birdsell is one of our best writers — no compromise, no hesitance,
a full canvas."
—Michael Ondaatje
"In fiction what I long for is a sense of the stories being alive —
all hot, rude, contrary, funny, unbearable. You don’t get that
nearly often enough, but in Sandra Birdsell’ s work you do get it
over and over again, and she has the energy, the faith, the skill
to make her stories overwhelm us."
—Alice Munro
"With her formidable gift for psychological observation and her
uncanny details of daily life a century ago, Birdsell weaves a
place as important as any in our literature. By sharing how power
is often foisted upon us from an outside world, The Russländer
illuminates with an artistic glow of the first rank, the intimate
certainty that evil will not dominate kindness, truth or love.”
—Giller Prize Jury Citation
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