Wayne Grady

Wayne Grady is an award winning Canadian author, editor, and translator.

Grady was born in Windsor, Ontario in 1948. His first novel, 2013’s Emancipation Day, is set in Windsor during the Second World.

He studied English Literature at Carleton University, from which he received a First-Class Honours BA in 1971. His professional writing has appeared numerous magazines, Wayne Grady including a natural-history column in Explore. These essays were later published in Bringing Back the Dodo (2006). He has been short-listed for thirteen National Magazine Awards. Grady has translated fifteen novels from French to English, and has edited eleven anthologies. He was awarded the Governor General’s Award for Translation in 1989 and was nominated for the same award in 1995 and in 2005. Grady’s original books on natural history and environmentalism include 2007’s The Great Lakes: the Natural History of a Changing Region and 2004’s Tree: A Life (co-authored by David Suzuki). His first novel, Emancipation Day, was released in 2013. Inspired by Grady’s discovery of his own African-American heritage, it depicts an inter-racial marriage between a black man who is passing for white and a white woman who is unaware of his past. Emancipation Day was long-listed for the 2013 Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the 2013 Amazon.ca First Novel Award. Grady lives in British Columbia with his wife, the writer Merilyn Simonds, and teaches creative writing at the University of British Columbia.