Raymond Fraser
Encyclopedia
Raymond Fraser is a Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...

.

Born in Chatham
Chatham, New Brunswick
Chatham is a Canadian urban neighbourhood in the city of Miramichi, New Brunswick.Prior to municipal amalgamation in 1995, Chatham was an incorporated town in Northumberland County along the south bank of the Miramichi River opposite Douglastown...

, New Brunswick
New Brunswick
New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...

, Fraser attended St Thomas University
St. Thomas University (New Brunswick)
St. Thomas University is jointly a public and Roman Catholic liberal arts university located in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. It offers degrees exclusively at the undergraduate level for approximately 3,000 students in the liberal arts, humanities, journalism, education, and social work....

 where in his freshman year he played on the varsity hockey and football teams, and in his junior year was co-editor with John Brebner of the student literary magazine Tom-Tom. His 20-year correspondence and friendship with the poet Alden Nowlan
Alden Nowlan
Alden Albert Nowlan was a critically acclaimed Canadian poet, novelist, and playwright-History:Alden Nowlan was born into rural poverty in Stanley, Nova Scotia, adjacent to Mosherville, and close to the small town of Windsor, Nova Scotia, along a stretch of dirt road that he would later refer to...

 date from this period.

While living in Montreal, Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....

 in 1966, Fraser and poet Leroy Johnson founded the literary magazine Intercourse: Contemporary Canadian Writing. In 1971 he was one of the founders of the Montreal Story Tellers Fiction Performance Group and the Rank Outsiders Poetry Extravaganza. His first book of fiction, The Black Horse Tavern (1973), was published in Montreal by Ingluvin Publications.

During the sixties Fraser worked as a lab technician, a high school teacher, and as editor and freelance writer for a number of tabloid newspapers.

In his essay "In the End, a Beginning: The Montreal Story Tellers", critic Keith Garebian
Keith Garebian
Keith Garebian is a Canadian critic, editor, biographer, and poet.Born in Bombay, India, to an Armenian father and Anglo-Indian mother, he immigrated to Canada in 1961...

 writes: "Raymond Fraser's booming Maritime vigour and directness seem, with subtle undertows of psychological configuration, like a roaring tide battering the literary shore... Fraser's narrative ancestors are not only the old salts of every Maritime tavern or watering-hole, but also the more commemorated figures of Mark Twain and Hugh Garner."

Fraser’s writings have been praised by such literary figures as Farley Mowat
Farley Mowat
Farley McGill Mowat, , born May 12, 1921 is a conservationist and one of Canada's most widely-read authors.His works have been translated into 52 languages and he has sold more than 14 million books. He achieved fame with the publication of his books on the Canadian North, such as People of the...

, Irving Layton
Irving Layton
Irving Peter Layton, OC was a Romanian-born Canadian poet. He was known for his "tell it like it is" style which won him a wide following but also made enemies. As T...

, Louis Dudek
Louis Dudek
Louis Dudek, OC was a Canadian poet, academic, and publisher known for his role in defining Modernism in poetry, and for his literary criticism. He was the author of over two dozen books...

, Alden Nowlan
Alden Nowlan
Alden Albert Nowlan was a critically acclaimed Canadian poet, novelist, and playwright-History:Alden Nowlan was born into rural poverty in Stanley, Nova Scotia, adjacent to Mosherville, and close to the small town of Windsor, Nova Scotia, along a stretch of dirt road that he would later refer to...

, Sheila Watson, Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, is a Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, poet and novelist. Cohen published his first book of poetry in Montreal in 1956 and his first novel in 1963. His work often explores religion, isolation, sexuality and interpersonal relationships...

, Hugh Garner
Hugh Garner
Hugh Garner was a Canadian novelist.Born in Batley, Yorkshire, England, Garner came to Canada in 1919 with his parents, and was raised in Toronto, Ontario. During the Great Depression, he rode the rails in both Canada and the United States, and then joined the International Brigades in the Spanish...

, Michael Cook and William French
William French
William French may refer to:* William H. French , Union general in the American Civil War* Percy French , full name William Percy French, Irish entertainer and artist*William French...

.

Following publication of his novel In Another Life (Lion's Head Press, 2009) he received the inaugural Lieutenant-Governor's Award for High Achievement in English-Language Literary Arts.

"In Another Life is heart-warming and heart-wrenching all at once. It’s the real deal, a genuine masterpiece of storytelling, sadly beautiful, and perhaps Fraser's finest work to date." — Stephen Clare, The Book Club, Halifax

"It's a work of great love... a beautifully wrought story, tragic, poignant and full of rich detail. It's just masterful.” — Robert Lecker
Robert Lecker
Robert Lecker is Greenshields Professor of English at McGill University, where he specializes in Canadian literature. Lecker was the co-editor of the critical journal Essays on Canadian Writing from 1975-2004, and the copublisher at ECW Press from 1977-2003...



Five of Fraser's books were listed in Atlantic Canada's 100 Greatest Books (Nimbus Publishing, 2009), a distinction shared by only three other authors.

Farley Mowat
Farley Mowat
Farley McGill Mowat, , born May 12, 1921 is a conservationist and one of Canada's most widely-read authors.His works have been translated into 52 languages and he has sold more than 14 million books. He achieved fame with the publication of his books on the Canadian North, such as People of the...

 called him "the best literary voice to come belling out of the Maritimes in decades." Alden Nowlan
Alden Nowlan
Alden Albert Nowlan was a critically acclaimed Canadian poet, novelist, and playwright-History:Alden Nowlan was born into rural poverty in Stanley, Nova Scotia, adjacent to Mosherville, and close to the small town of Windsor, Nova Scotia, along a stretch of dirt road that he would later refer to...

 wrote of him: "Raymond Fraser is one of the most gifted writers I know, and among his gifts are two that are all too rare: a zest for life and a sense of humour. He belongs to the timeless tradition of story tellers."

In assessing Fraser's poetry book, I’ve Laughed and Sung Through the Whole Night Long Seen the Summer Sunrise in the Morning, the critic Louis Dudek
Louis Dudek
Louis Dudek, OC was a Canadian poet, academic, and publisher known for his role in defining Modernism in poetry, and for his literary criticism. He was the author of over two dozen books...

 wrote: "The poems have wit and a perfectly authentic consistency — a subtle play against a constant background bass of despair or cosmic absurdity. Unfailingly interesting and impossible to put down once I started. Wonderful stuff!"

Of Fraser's most recent novel, The Madness Of Youth (2011), film-maker Philip Desjardins of Philip Desjardins Productions, wrote: "I'll go out on a limb and say this is the best writing Fraser has ever done ... There are great gobs of sadness, original comic touches and just the right blend of plot and narrative comments to make this a huge pleasure to read and a learning experience to boot. Fraser has always "owned" the restless, wandering Maritimer as a fictional character, but this complex, exasperating 'split personality character Quann' and the believable world(s) created for him is a real coup. There are so many fresh and honest insights into relationships that I haven't come across before in fiction. And having lived in 1960s Montreal — he's nailed that one solidly .... Great job!"

Besides Montreal Fraser has lived in Dublin, Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and various parts of Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 and New Brunswick. He currently resides in Fredericton, New Brunswick. http://www.lib.unb.ca/archives/Fraser/bio.html

Fiction

  • The Black Horse Tavern - 1973
  • The Struggle Outside - 1975
  • The Bannonbridge Musicians - 1978
  • Rum River - 1997
  • Costa Blanca - 2001
  • In a Cloud of Dust and Smoke - 2003
  • The Grumpy Man - 2008
  • In Another Life - 2009
  • The Trials Of Brother Bell - 2010
  • The Madness Of Youth - 2011
  • Repentance Vale - 2011

Biography

  • The Fighting Fisherman: The Life of Yvon Durelle - 1981, 1983, 2005
  • Todd Matchett: Confessions of a Young Criminal - 1994

Poetry

  • For the Miramichi - 1966
  • Waiting for God's Angel - 1967
  • I've Laughed and Sung - 1969
  • The More I Live - 1971
  • Stop The Highway... 4 Montreal Poets: Raymond Fraser, Clifford Gaston, Bob Higgins & Bryan McCarthy - 1972
  • Macbride Poems - 1992
  • Before You're A Stranger - 2000

Anthology edited

  • East of Canada: An Atlantic Anthology - 1977 (Eds.: Raymond Fraser, Clyde Rose and Jim Stewart)

Literary magazines edited

  • Tom-Tom (St. Thomas University) 1962-1963.
  • Intercourse: Contemporary Canadian Writing Raymond Fraser et al., eds. 1966-1971.
  • The Pottersfield Portfolio Raymond Fraser et al., eds. 1990-1992.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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