Michel Basilières

Canadian writer

Michel Basilières
Born	1960 Montreal, Quebec
Occupation	Novelist
Language	English
Genre	Fiction
Years active	2003-present
Notable works	Black Bird
Notable awards	Amazon.ca First Novel Award (2004)

Michel Basilières (born 1960 in Montreal) is a Canadian writer, best known for his 2003 debut novel Black Bird.^[1]

Background

Basilières, the son of a Québécois father and an English Canadian mother, grew up as an anglophone despite his French surname.^[2] He studied creative writing at Concordia University, but dropped out before graduating, and spent much of his adult life working in bookstores in both Montreal and Toronto.^[1]

Career

Black Bird was published in 2003 as part of Knopf Canada's New Faces of Fiction series of works by emerging writers.^[3] A comic, magic realist take on the October Crisis of 1970,^[3] the novel won the 2004 Books in Canada First Novel Award,^[4] and was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour^[5] and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Novel.^[4]

Following his award win, Basilières was a freelance book reviewer for the Toronto Star, the National Post and The Globe and Mail, and taught creative writing at the University of Toronto.

His second novel, A Free Man, published in 2015,^[6] was a ReLit Award finalist in 2016.

Awards

Awards for Basilières's writing
Year	Title	Award	Result	Ref.
2004	Black Bird	Books in Canada First Novel Award	Winner	^[7]
		Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Novel	Shortlist	^[4]
		Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour	Shortlist	^[5]
2016	A Free Man	ReLit Award for Novel	Shortlist

Publications

Black Bird. Vintage Books. 2003. ISBN 978-0-676-97528-4.
A Free Man. a misFit book. 2015. ISBN 978-1-770-41233-0.

References

^ ^a ^b "An ambition fulfilled". Montreal Gazette, April 12, 2003.
^ "Alone between two solitudes". The Globe and Mail, May 5, 2003.
^ ^a ^b "The October Crisis you've never seen". Ottawa Citizen, March 27, 2003.
^ ^a ^b ^c "First Novel prize goes to October Crisis story". Kingston Whig-Standard, October 14, 2004.
^ ^a ^b "Leacock shortlisters". National Post, March 25, 2004.
^ "Allowing Oneself To be Deceived". National Post, May 9, 2015.
^ "Basilieres wins first novel award". The Telegram, October 17, 2004.