Guy Vanderhaeghe - Life and Career

Life and Career

Guy Vanderhaeghe was born on April 5, 1951 in Esterhazy, a mining town in southeastern Saskatchewan. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree with great distinction in 1971, High Honours in History in 1972 and Master of Arts in History in 1975, all from the University of Saskatchewan. In 1978 he received his Bachelor of Education with great distinction from the University of Regina. In 1973 he was Research Officer, Institute for Northern Studies, University of Saskatchewan and, from 1974 until 1977, he worked as Archival and Library Assistant at the university.

From 1975 to 1977 he was a freelance writer and editor and in 1978 and 1979 taught English and history at Herbert High School in Herbert, Saskatchewan. In 1983 and 1984 he was Writer-in-Residence with the Saskatoon Public Library and in 1985 Writer-in-Residence at the University of Ottawa. He has been a Visiting Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Ottawa (1985–86), faculty member of the Writing Program of the Banff Centre for the Arts (1990–91), faculty member in charge of senior fiction students in the SAGE Hills Creative Writing Program (1992). Since 1993 he has served as a visiting professor of English at St. Thomas More College at the University of Saskatchewan.

Vanderhaeghe's first book, Man Descending (1982), was winner of a Governor General's Award and the United Kingdom's Faber Prize. A novel, The Englishman's Boy (1996), won him a second Governor General's Award for Fiction and the Saskatchewan Book Award for Fiction and for Best Book of the Year, and it was shortlisted for both the Giller Prize and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.

The Last Crossing (2002) was a national bestseller and winner of the Saskatoon Book Award, the Saskatchewan Book Awards for Fiction and for Book of the Year, and the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year. The novel was selected for the 2004 edition of Canada Reads as the book that should be read by all Canadians.

In 2003, Vanderhaeghe was awarded the Saskatchewan Order of Merit and was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Vanderhaeghe lives with his wife in Saskatoon, SK. He currently teaches creative writing as an evening class at St. Thomas Moore college at the University of Saskatchewan.

On May 18, 2012, Vanderhaege's wife, Margaret, died