Austin Clarke
Contributor Banff Centre Press
As a Canadian writer born and raised in Barbados, Austin Clarke has been able to explore the difficult lives of Caribbean immigrants in Toronto from a unique perspective. His ninth novel, The Polished Hoe, won the Giller Prize for fiction in 2002 and the Regional Commonwealth Prize for best book in 2003. Clarke has also published six collections of short stories and in 1999 was awarded the W. O. Mitchell Prize for producing an outstanding body of work, as well as receiving the Rogers Communication Writers Trust Prize (1998). Austin Clarke lives in Toronto.