Marian Engel
Encyclopedia
Marian Engel, OC, née Marian Ruth Passmore (1933–1985) was an award-winning Canadian novelist.
, Ontario
, to teacher parents Frederick Searle and Mary Elizabeth (Fletcher) Passmore. She grew up in Port Arthur
, Brantford
, Galt, Hamilton
and Sarnia
.
Engel was educated at Sarnia Collegiate Institute & Technical School, Sarnia, ON, McMaster University
(B.A.
in Language Studies 1955) Hamilton, ON, McGill University
(M.A.
in Canadian Literature 1957) Montreal, QC and studied on a Rotary Foundation Scholarship at the Université d’Aix-Marseille (French Literature 1960-61), Aix-en Provence, France. At McMaster University she wrote her Master’s thesis
on the English Canadian novel, under the supervision of Hugh MacLennan.
She taught briefly at The Study
(1957–58) (Westmount, Montreal, QC), McGill University and University of Montana-Missoula (Missoula, Montana
) and St. John’s School (Nicosia, Cyprus
).
She met Howard Engel
, a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
(CBC) radio producer in Canada, and married him in England in 1962. They returned to Toronto, ON in 1964. She began to raise a family, twin children, William Lucas Passmore and Charlotte Helen Arabella, and to pursue a writing career. Marian and Howard separated in 1975 and divorced in 1977.
Engel was writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta
(1977–1978) and at the University of Toronto
(1980–1982).
Engel died of cancer
in Toronto on February 16, 1985.
Commission.
From 1975-1977 she served on the City of Toronto Book Award
(an award she won in 1981 for Lunatic Villas ) Committee and the Canadian Book and Periodical Development Council. She held a trusteeship on the Toronto Public Library
Board from 1975-1978.
In 1982 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Engel was Metro Toronto YWCA’s Woman of Distinction in Arts and Letters in 1984.
After her death the Writer's Development Trust of Canada instituted the $10 000 Marian Engel Award
, which was presented annually to a woman writer in mid-career. The Engel and Findley Awards are no longer awarded separately, but were combined into the new Writers’ Trust Notable Author Award as of 2008.
She wrote two children's books; Adventures of Moon Bay Towers (1974) and My name is not Odessa Yarker (1977).
Engel's most famous and controversial novel was Bear (1976), a tale of erotic love between a librarian and a bear. She won the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction in 1976 for Bear.
Inside the Easter Egg (1975) and her posthumous The Tattooed Woman (1985) were collections of short stories. Some of these short stories had originally been written for Robert Weaver’s CBC radio program Anthology. The novel JOANNE: The Last Days of a Modern Marriage was originally commissioned as a radio-novel by CBC for the program This Country in the Morning.
In 1981 she wrote the text for a coffee-table style travel book Islands of Canada with photographs by J. A. Kraulis.
Engel was an avid journal keeper. Her journals were primarily a repository for memories and details from which she drew for her fiction. In 1999, this material was edited and published as Marian Engel's Notebook: ‘Ah, mon cahier, écoute…’.
From 1965-1985 she corresponded with literary peers and friends such as, Hugh MacLennan
, Robertson Davies
, Dennis Lee
, Margaret Atwood
, Timothy Findley
, Alice Munro
, Margaret Lawrence, Matt Cohen, Robert Weaver
, Graeme Gibson
and more. Some of this correspondence can be found in Dear Hugh, Dear Marian: the MacLennan-Engel Correspondence (1995) and Marian Engel: Life in Letters (2004)
The novel on which she was working at the time of her death, Elizabeth and the Golden City was never completed until Christyl Verduyn incorporated it into Marion and the Major: Engel’s Elizabeth and the Golden City which was published in 2010.
Jimfbleak, Mayumashu, Noahand, RedWolf, Rilla Moore, Stevecudmore, Treybien, Victoriagirl, WayneRay, YCCHAN, YUL89YYZ, 5 anonymous edits
http:/ /
Summary
Born May 24, 1933 in TorontoToronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, to teacher parents Frederick Searle and Mary Elizabeth (Fletcher) Passmore. She grew up in Port Arthur
Port Arthur, Ontario
Port Arthur was a city in Northern Ontario which amalgamated with Fort William and the townships of Neebing and McIntyre to form the city of Thunder Bay in January 1970. Port Arthur was the district seat of Thunder Bay District.- History :...
, Brantford
Brantford, Ontario
Brantford is a city located on the Grand River in Southern Ontario, Canada. While geographically surrounded by the County of Brant, the city is politically independent...
, Galt, Hamilton
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...
and Sarnia
Sarnia, Ontario
Sarnia is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada . It is the largest city on Lake Huron and is located where the upper Great Lakes empty into the St. Clair River....
.
Engel was educated at Sarnia Collegiate Institute & Technical School, Sarnia, ON, McMaster University
McMaster University
McMaster University is a public research university whose main campus is located in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The main campus is located on of land in the residential neighbourhood of Westdale, adjacent to Hamilton's Royal Botanical Gardens...
(B.A.
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...
in Language Studies 1955) Hamilton, ON, McGill University
McGill University
Mohammed Fathy is a public research university located in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The university bears the name of James McGill, a prominent Montreal merchant from Glasgow, Scotland, whose bequest formed the beginning of the university...
(M.A.
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
in Canadian Literature 1957) Montreal, QC and studied on a Rotary Foundation Scholarship at the Université d’Aix-Marseille (French Literature 1960-61), Aix-en Provence, France. At McMaster University she wrote her Master’s thesis
Thesis
A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...
on the English Canadian novel, under the supervision of Hugh MacLennan.
She taught briefly at The Study
The Study
The Study is a Canadian private education all-girls school in Westmount, Quebec. Girls can attend from Kindergarten through to grade 11. The school was founded in 1915, by a young Englishwoman named Margaret Gascoigne. Today, The Study offers a bilingual education to 360 students from Kindergarten...
(1957–58) (Westmount, Montreal, QC), McGill University and University of Montana-Missoula (Missoula, Montana
Missoula, Montana
Missoula is a city located in western Montana and is the county seat of Missoula County. The 2010 Census put the population of Missoula at 66,788 and the population of Missoula County at 109,299. Missoula is the principal city of the Missoula Metropolitan Area...
) and St. John’s School (Nicosia, Cyprus
Cyprus
Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...
).
She met Howard Engel
Howard Engel
Howard Engel CM is a Canadian mystery writer and CBC producer who resides in Toronto, Ontario. He is well known to Canadian readers for his series of Benny Cooperman detective novels, set in the Niagara Region in and around the city of Grantham, Ontario...
, a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
(CBC) radio producer in Canada, and married him in England in 1962. They returned to Toronto, ON in 1964. She began to raise a family, twin children, William Lucas Passmore and Charlotte Helen Arabella, and to pursue a writing career. Marian and Howard separated in 1975 and divorced in 1977.
Engel was writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta
University of Alberta
The University of Alberta is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president, it is widely recognized as one of the best universities in Canada...
(1977–1978) and at the University of Toronto
University of Toronto
The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...
(1980–1982).
Engel died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
in Toronto on February 16, 1985.
Public Life
Engel was a passionate activist for the national and international writer’s cause. She was the first chair of the Writer’s Union of Canada (1973–74) and helped instigate the Public Lending RightPublic Lending Right
A Public Lending Right program, is a program intended to either compensate authors for the potential loss of sales from their works being available in public libraries, or as a governmental support of the arts, through support of works available in public libraries, such as books, music and...
Commission.
From 1975-1977 she served on the City of Toronto Book Award
City of Toronto Book Award
The Toronto Book Awards are Canadian literary awards, presented annually by the city of Toronto to the author of the year's best fiction or non-fiction book or books "that are evocative of Toronto"....
(an award she won in 1981 for Lunatic Villas ) Committee and the Canadian Book and Periodical Development Council. She held a trusteeship on the Toronto Public Library
Toronto Public Library
Toronto Public Library is a public library system based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the largest public library system in Canada and in 2008, had averaged a higher...
Board from 1975-1978.
In 1982 she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Engel was Metro Toronto YWCA’s Woman of Distinction in Arts and Letters in 1984.
After her death the Writer's Development Trust of Canada instituted the $10 000 Marian Engel Award
Marian Engel Award
The Marian Engel Award was a Canadian literary award, presented each year from 1986 to 2007 by the Writers' Trust of Canada in memory of the writer Marian Engel...
, which was presented annually to a woman writer in mid-career. The Engel and Findley Awards are no longer awarded separately, but were combined into the new Writers’ Trust Notable Author Award as of 2008.
Literary Life
Marian Engel’s first published novel, No Clouds of Glory, was published in 1968.She wrote two children's books; Adventures of Moon Bay Towers (1974) and My name is not Odessa Yarker (1977).
Engel's most famous and controversial novel was Bear (1976), a tale of erotic love between a librarian and a bear. She won the Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction in 1976 for Bear.
Inside the Easter Egg (1975) and her posthumous The Tattooed Woman (1985) were collections of short stories. Some of these short stories had originally been written for Robert Weaver’s CBC radio program Anthology. The novel JOANNE: The Last Days of a Modern Marriage was originally commissioned as a radio-novel by CBC for the program This Country in the Morning.
In 1981 she wrote the text for a coffee-table style travel book Islands of Canada with photographs by J. A. Kraulis.
Engel was an avid journal keeper. Her journals were primarily a repository for memories and details from which she drew for her fiction. In 1999, this material was edited and published as Marian Engel's Notebook: ‘Ah, mon cahier, écoute…’.
From 1965-1985 she corresponded with literary peers and friends such as, Hugh MacLennan
Hugh MacLennan
John Hugh MacLennan, CC, CQ was a Canadian author and professor of English at McGill University. He won five Governor General's Awards and a Royal Bank Award.-Family and childhood:...
, Robertson Davies
Robertson Davies
William Robertson Davies, CC, OOnt, FRSC, FRSL was a Canadian novelist, playwright, critic, journalist, and professor. He was one of Canada's best-known and most popular authors, and one of its most distinguished "men of letters", a term Davies is variously said to have gladly accepted for himself...
, Dennis Lee
Dennis Lee
Dennis Lee may refer to:*Dennis Lee , Canadian children's writer and poet*Dennis Lee, director of Fireflies in the Garden*Dennis Lee, lead screamer for the North Carolinian band, Alesana-See also:...
, Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...
, Timothy Findley
Timothy Findley
Timothy Irving Frederick Findley, OC, O.Ont was a Canadian novelist and playwright. He was also informally known by the nickname Tiff or Tiffy, an acronym of his initials.-Biography:...
, Alice Munro
Alice Munro
Alice Ann Munro is a Canadian short-story writer, the winner of the 2009 Man Booker International Prize for her lifetime body of work, a three-time winner of Canada's Governor General's Award for fiction, and a perennial contender for the Nobel Prize...
, Margaret Lawrence, Matt Cohen, Robert Weaver
Robert Weaver
Robert Weaver is the name of:*Robert Weaver , 20th century Canadian editor and broadcaster*Robert C. Weaver, 20th century American politician*Robert Weaver , American illustrator*Robert Weaver , American surfer...
, Graeme Gibson
Graeme Gibson
Graeme C. Gibson, CM is a Canadian novelist who lives in Toronto, Ontario. He is a Member of the Order of Canada , and was one of the organizers of the Writer's Union of Canada . He has a long term relationship with the novelist and poet Margaret Atwood.In 1996 he decided to stop writing novels...
and more. Some of this correspondence can be found in Dear Hugh, Dear Marian: the MacLennan-Engel Correspondence (1995) and Marian Engel: Life in Letters (2004)
The novel on which she was working at the time of her death, Elizabeth and the Golden City was never completed until Christyl Verduyn incorporated it into Marion and the Major: Engel’s Elizabeth and the Golden City which was published in 2010.
Selected bibliography
- No Clouds of Glory [1968] (reissued as Sarah Bastard's Notebook, [1974] )
- The Honeyman Festival [1970]
- Monodromos [1973] (reissued as One way street [1975] )
- Adventure at Moon Bay Towers [1974]
- Inside the Easter Egg [1975]
- JOANNE:The Last Days of a Modern Marriage [1975]
- Bear [1976]
- My name is not Odessa Yarker [1977]
- The Glassy Sea [1979]
- Lunatic Villas [1981] (UK published as The year of the child )
- Islands of Canada (photographs by J. A. Kraulis) [1981]
- The Tattooed Woman [1985]
Posthumous bibliography
- Verduyn, Christl, ed. Dear Marian, Dear Hugh: The MacLennan-Engel Correspondence. Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1995.
- Verduyn, Christl, ed. Marian Engel's Notebook: ‘Ah, mon cahier, écoute…’. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1999.
- Verduyn, Christl and Kathleen Garay, eds. Marian Engel: Life in Letters. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004
- Verduyn, Christl, Marion and the Major: Engel’s Elizabeth and the Golden City Montreal-Kingston: McGill Queen’s University Press, 2010.
Article Sources and Contributors
Marian Engel Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=330850985 Contributors: Bearcat, Chris the speller, D6, Dreadarthur, Dreamafter, HelenKMarks, Ibagli, JillandJack,Jimfbleak, Mayumashu, Noahand, RedWolf, Rilla Moore, Stevecudmore, Treybien, Victoriagirl, WayneRay, YCCHAN, YUL89YYZ, 5 anonymous edits
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