
Alistair MacLeod
Biography
Alistair MacLeod is probably the Atlantic region’s best-known and most respected writer, and aside from Alice Munro, probably the best writer of short fiction in Canada. MacLeod was born in North Battleford, Saskatchewan in 1936, but his family moved back to Cape Breton, where it has deep roots, when he was ten. After high school, MacLeod worked a variety of jobs, including as a logger, a miner, and a fisherman, to pay for his education. He took a B.A. and a B. Ed. at St. Francis Xavier University, and then went on to receive his M.A. from the University of New Brunswick and his doctorate from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. He taught at the University of Indiana for three years before taking up a position at the University of Windsor in 1969, where he taught English and creative writing until his retirement. MacLeod is widely respected for the craftsmanship of his stories, over which he takes a great deal of time and care. This is reflected in his relatively small output: two collections of stories, The Lost Salt Gift of Blood (1976) and As Birds Bring Forth the Sun (1986); his stories have also been gathered in The Island (2000). MacLeod also published a novel, No Great Mischief, in 1999, which won the Dublin IMPAC award and catapulted MacLeod to international fame. In 2004, he published To Every Thing There Is a Season: A Cape Breton Christmas Story, illustrated by Peter Rankin. In 2008, MacLeod was appointed an officer of the Order of Canada. He died in the spring of 2014.
Bibliography
- The Lost Salt Gift of Blood. New Canadian Library. 2nd ed. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1989.
- As Birds Bring Forth the Sun and Other Stories. New Canadian Library. 2nd ed. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1992.
- Island. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2000.
- No Great Mischief. Emblem Editions. 2nd ed. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2001.
- To Every Thing There Is a Season: A Cape Breton Christmas Story. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 2004.
Critical Sources
- Berces, Francis. "Existential Maritimer: Alistair MacLeod's The Lost Salt Gift of Blood." Studies in Canadian Literature/Etudes en Littérature Canadienne 16.1 (1991): 114-28.
- Collinge, Linda, and Jacques Sohier. "Alistair MacLeod b. 1936." Journal of the Short Story in English 41 (2003): 255-72.
- Creelman, David. "'Hoping to Strike some Sort of Solidity': The Shifting Fictions of Alistair MacLeod." Studies in Canadian Literature/Etudes en Littérature Canadienne 24.2 (1999): 79-99.
- Davidson, Arnold E. "As Birds Bring Forth the Story: The Elusive Art of Alistair MacLeod." Canadian Literature 119 (1988): 32-42.
- Ditsky, John. "'such Meticulous Brightness': The Fiction of Alistair MacLeod." The Hollins Critic 25.1 (1988): 1-9.
- Ferri, Laura. "'In a Detailed World': An Interview with Alistair MacLeod." Arachne: An Interdisciplinary Journal of the Humanities 7, no. 1- 2 (2000): 21-6.
- Fuller, Danielle. "The Crest of the Wave: Reading the Success Story of Bestsellers." Studies in Canadian Literature 33.2 (2008): 40-59.
- Gittings, Christopher. "'Sounds in the Empty Spaces of History': The Highland Clearances in Neil Gunn's Highland River and Alistair MacLeod's 'the Road to Rankin's Point'." Studies in Canadian Literature 17.1 (1992): 93-105.
- Hiscock, Andrew. "'This Inherited Life': Alistair MacLeod and the Ends of History." Journal of Commonwealth Literature 35.2 (2000): 51-70.
- Hodd, Thomas. "Shoring Against our Ruin: Sheldon Currie, Alistair MacLeod, and the Heritage Preservation Narrative." Studies in Canadian Literature 33.2 (2008): 191-209.
- Kruk, Laurie. "Alistair Macleod: The World if Full of Exiles." Studies in Canadian Literature 20.1 (1995): 150-9.
- "Hands and Mirrors: Gender Reflections in the Short Stories of Alistair MacLeod and Timothy Findley." Dominant Impressions: Essays on the Canadian Short Story. Ed. Gerald Lynch and Angela Arnold Robbeson. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1999. 137-150.
- Lepaludier, Laurent. "The Everyday in 'the Closing Down of Summer' by Alistair MacLeod." Journal of the Short Story in English 38 (2002): 39-55.
- Mason, Jody. "A Family of Migrant Workers: Region and the Rise of Neoliberalism in Alistair MacLeod's No Great Mischief." Studies in Canadian Literature 38.1 (2013): 151-69.
- Miller, Karl. "From the Lone Shieling: Alistair MacLeod." Raritan: A Quarterly Review 21.4 (2002): 149-61.
- Nicholson, Colin. "Alistair MacLeod." The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 21.1 (1986): 188-200.
- "'the Turning of Memory': Alistair MacLeod's Short Stories." Recherches Anglaises et Nord-Americaines 20 (1987): 85-93.
- Omhovère, Claire. “Roots and Routes in a Selection of Stories by Alistair MacLeod.” Canadian Literature 189 (2006): 50-67.
- Reading Alistair MacLeod. Dir. William D. MacGillvray. National Film Board of Canada, 2005.
- Riegel, Christina. "Elegy and Mourning in Alistair MacLeod's 'The Boat'." Studies in Short Fiction 35.3 (1998): 233-40.
- Sandrock, Kirsten. "Scottish Territories and Canadian Identity: Regional Aspects in the Literature of Alistair MacLeod." Translation of Cultures. Ed. Petra Rudiger and Konrad Gross. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2009. 169-82.
- Stevens, David. "Writing Region Across the Border: Two Stories of Breece Pancake and Alistair MacLeod." Studies in Short Fiction 33.2 (1996): 263- 71.
- Sugars, Cynthia. "Repetition with a Difference: The Paradox of Origins in Alistair MacLeod's No Great Mischief." Studies in Canadian Literature 33.2 (2008): 133-50.
- Taylor, James O. "Art Imagery and Destiny in Alistair MacLeod's Fiction: 'Winter Dog' as Paradigm." The Journal of Commonwealth Literature 29.2 (1994): 61-9.
- Thompson, Corey. "Alistair MacLeod's 'to Everything there is a Season': An Allegorical Second Coming." Notes on Contemporary Literature 33.2 (2003): 2-3.
- Vauthier, Simone. "Mapping Alistair MacLeod's 'Vision'." 'Union in Partition': Essays in Honour of Jeanne Delbaere. Ed. Gilbert Debusscher and Marc Maufort. Liège, Belgium: L3-Liège Language and Literature, 1997. 161-172.
- Zagratzki, Uwe. "Sea, Land, Earth: The Experience of Dislocation in Alistair MacLeod's Short Stories." Being/s in Transit: Travelling, Migration, Dislocation. Ed. Liselotte Glage. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000. 205-213.
See also: - David Creelman, Setting in the East: Maritime Realist Fiction (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2003) 125-45.