Culture of Manitoba - Literature

Literature

Many of Manitoba's authors have received national and international recognition for their work. Bertram Brooker won the first-ever Governor General's Award for Fiction in 1936. Robert Kroetsch, Adele Wiseman and Miriam Toews are also among the Manitoban recipients of the Governor General's Award. David Bergen won the Scotiabank Giller Prize for The Time In Between. A. E. van Vogt, born in Gretna, Manitoba, is one of the most popular writers of the Golden Age of Science Fiction. Cartoonist Lynn Johnston, author of the comic strip For Better or For Worse, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and inducted into the Canadian Cartoonist Hall of Fame.

Margaret Laurence, who lived in Neepawa, Manitoba for most of her life, was described by the CBC as "one of Canada's most esteemed and beloved authors by the end of her literary career". Her The Stone Angel, along with several other stories, was set in Manawaka, a fictional town representing Neepawa. Laurence won the Governor General's Award in 1966 for A Jest of God. Gabrielle Roy, a Franco-Manitoban writer born in Saint Boniface, Manitoba, won the Governor General's Award three times. A quote from her writings is featured on the Canadian $20 bill. Carol Shields won both the Governor General's Award and the Pulitzer Prize for The Stone Diaries. She wrote most of her books while teaching English at the University of Manitoba.