Gwethalyn Graham
Gwethalyn Graham (January 18, 1913 – November 25, 1965) was a Canadian writer and activist, whose 1944 novel Earth and High Heaven was the first Canadian book to reach number one on the New York Times Best Seller list.[1] Graham won the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction twice, for her first novel Swiss Sonata in 1938,[2] and for Earth and High Heaven in 1944.[1]
Background
She was born Gwethalyn Graham Erichsen-Brown, to wealthy Toronto parents. Her father was a lawyer. At 19, she was a student at Smith College in Massachusetts, but dropped out and eloped with John McNaught, the son of her father's business partner.[1] They divorced after two years, and Graham moved to the city of Westmount on the island of Montreal, where she became a close friend and associate of Hugh MacLennan, F. R. Scott, Thérèse Casgrain and Pierre Trudeau. Graham subsequently married David Yalden-Thomson, a philosophy professor at McGill University; they subsequently also divorced.[1]
Graham's sister, Isabel LeBourdais, was a journalist whose 1966 book The Trial of Steven Truscott played a key role in disputing the evidence that led to Steven Truscott's controversial murder conviction,[3] and her brother John Erichsen-Brown was a diplomat with the Canadian Department of External Affairs.[4]
Career
She wrote two abandoned early novels[1] before completing Swiss Sonata, which was published in 1938.[5]
Graham was also an outspoken activist against anti-Semitism and anti-French Canadian discrimination;[6] Earth and High Heaven depicted an interfaith romance between a Protestant woman from Montreal and a Jewish man from Northern Ontario.[7] The novel was optioned by Samuel Goldwyn for a film that was to star Katharine Hepburn;[8] however, the film was never made, as Goldwyn abandoned the project after the similarly themed Gentleman's Agreement came out while Earth and High Heaven was still in development.[1]
Graham's only published book after Earth and High Heaven was Dear Enemies, a non-fiction collection of her correspondence with journalist Solange Chaput-Rolland about English-French relations in Canada.[1] She had postponed her planned third novel to work on the book.[1] She also wrote a theatrical play, Trouble at Weti,[9] and radio plays for CBC Radio,[1] and translated works by writers from Quebec, most notably André Laurendeau's play Two Terrible Women (Deux femmes terribles), into English.[1]
Graham died in 1965 of an undiagnosed brain tumour, aged 52.[1] Her illness and death resulted in the cancellation of a planned sequel to Dear Enemies.[1]
Both Swiss Sonata and Earth and High Heaven were reissued by Cormorant Books in 2004.[10] Graham is the subject of a biography, Gwethalyn Graham: a Liberated Woman in a Conventional Age, by Barbara Meadowcroft (Toronto: Women's Press, 2008).
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Gwethalyn Graham: Two fiction awards won by Montrealer". The Globe and Mail, November 26, 1965.
- ^ "Honors for Canadian Writers". The Globe and Mail, April 29, 1939.
- ^ "Isabel LeBourdais 1909–2003: Her book said Truscott trial wrong". The Globe and Mail, April 14, 2003.
- ^ "Erichsen-Brown Goes to Belgium As Counsellor". The Globe and Mail, August 20, 1953.
- ^ "A Toronto Girl in Switzerland". The Globe and Mail, March 19, 1938.
- ^ "Novel No Tract: Fair Play For Jews Demanded". The Globe and Mail, October 3, 1944.
- ^ "Canadian Novel Challenges Montreal's Race Prejudice". The Globe and Mail, October 7, 1944.
- ^ "Toronto Novelist Sells Film Rights for $100,000". The Globe and Mail, September 2, 1944.
- ^ "2 Novels by Canadians Due Soon on Broadway". The Globe and Mail, January 7, 1950.
- ^ "Romeo and Juliet in Westmount". The Globe and Mail, March 13, 2004.
External links
- Works by Gwethalyn Graham at Faded Page (Canada)
- v
- t
- e
- Bertram Brooker, Think of the Earth (1936)
- Laura Salverson, The Dark Weaver (1937)
- Gwethalyn Graham, Swiss Sonata (1938)
- Franklin D. McDowell, The Champlain Road (1939)
- Ringuet, Thirty Acres (1940)
- Alan Sullivan, Three Came to Ville Marie (1941)
- G. Herbert Sallans, Little Man (1942)
- Thomas Head Raddall, The Pied Piper of Dipper Creek (1943)
- Gwethalyn Graham, Earth and High Heaven (1944)
- Hugh MacLennan, Two Solitudes (1945)
- Winifred Bambrick, Continental Revue (1946)
- Gabrielle Roy, The Tin Flute (1947)
- Hugh MacLennan, The Precipice (1948)
- Philip Child, Mr. Ames Against Time (1949)
- Germaine Guèvremont, The Outlander (1950)
- Morley Callaghan, The Loved and the Lost (1951)
- David Walker, The Pillar (1952)
- David Walker, Digby (1953)
- Igor Gouzenko, The Fall of a Titan (1954)
- Lionel Shapiro, The Sixth of June (1955)
- Adele Wiseman, The Sacrifice (1956)
- Gabrielle Roy, Street of Riches (1957)
- Colin McDougall, Execution (1958)
- Hugh MacLennan, The Watch That Ends the Night (1959)
- Brian Moore, The Luck of Ginger Coffey (1960)
- Malcolm Lowry, Hear Us O Lord from Heaven Thy Dwelling Place (1961)
- Kildare Dobbs, Running to Paradise (1962)
- Hugh Garner, Hugh Garner's Best Stories (1963)
- Douglas LePan, The Deserter (1964)
- [no award] (1965)
- Margaret Laurence, A Jest of God (1966)
- [no award] (1967)
- Alice Munro, Dance of the Happy Shades (1968)
- Robert Kroetsch, The Studhorse Man (1969)
- Dave Godfrey, The New Ancestors (1970)
- Mordecai Richler, St. Urbain's Horseman (1971)
- Robertson Davies, The Manticore (1972)
- Rudy Wiebe, The Temptations of Big Bear (1973)
- Margaret Laurence, The Diviners (1974)
- Brian Moore, The Great Victorian Collection (1975)
- Marian Engel, Bear (1976)
- Timothy Findley, The Wars (1977)
- Alice Munro, Who Do You Think You Are? (1978)
- Jack Hodgins, The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne (1979)
- George Bowering, Burning Water (1980)
- Mavis Gallant, Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories (1981)
- Guy Vanderhaeghe, Man Descending (1982)
- Leon Rooke, Shakespeare's Dog (1983)
- Josef Škvorecký, The Engineer of Human Souls (1984)
- Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale (1985)
- Alice Munro, The Progress of Love (1986)
- M. T. Kelly, A Dream Like Mine (1987)
- David Adams Richards, Nights Below Station Street (1988)
- Paul Quarrington, Whale Music (1989)
- Nino Ricci, Lives of the Saints (1990)
- Rohinton Mistry, Such a Long Journey (1991)
- Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient (1992)
- Carol Shields, The Stone Diaries (1993)
- Rudy Wiebe, A Discovery of Strangers (1994)
- Greg Hollingshead, The Roaring Girl (1995)
- Guy Vanderhaeghe, The Englishman's Boy (1996)
- Jane Urquhart, The Underpainter (1997)
- Diane Schoemperlen, Forms of Devotion (1998)
- Matt Cohen, Elizabeth and After (1999)
- Michael Ondaatje, Anil's Ghost (2000)
- Richard B. Wright, Clara Callan (2001)
- Gloria Sawai, A Song for Nettie Johnson (2002)
- Douglas Glover, Elle (2003)
- Miriam Toews, A Complicated Kindness (2004)
- David Gilmour, A Perfect Night to Go to China (2005)
- Peter Behrens, The Law of Dreams (2006)
- Michael Ondaatje, Divisadero (2007)
- Nino Ricci, The Origin of Species (2008)
- Kate Pullinger, The Mistress of Nothing (2009)
- Dianne Warren, Cool Water (2010)
- Patrick deWitt, The Sisters Brothers (2011)
- Linda Spalding, The Purchase (2012)
- Eleanor Catton, The Luminaries (2013)
- Thomas King, The Back of the Turtle (2014)
- Guy Vanderhaeghe, Daddy Lenin and Other Stories (2015)
- Madeleine Thien, Do Not Say We Have Nothing (2016)
- Joel Thomas Hynes, We'll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night (2017)
- Sarah Henstra, The Red Word (2018)
- Joan Thomas, Five Wives (2019)
- Michelle Good, Five Little Indians (2020)
- Norma Dunning, Tainna (2021)
- Sheila Heti, Pure Colour (2022)
- Anuja Varghese, Chrysalis (2023)