Jane Urquhart
| Jane Urquhart | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born |
June 21, 1949 Little Longlac, Ontario |
| Citizenship | Canadian |
| Notable works | The Whirlpool, Away, The Underpainter, The Stone Carvers, Sanctuary Line |
| Notable awards | Governor General's Award for English-language fiction, Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger (France), International Dublin Literary Award, Officer of the Order of Canada, Marian Engel Award, Harbourfront Festival Prize, Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres |
| Spouse | Tony Urquhart |
Jane Urquhart, Order of Canada OC (born June 21, 1949) is a Canadian novelist and poet born in Little Long Lac, Ontario. She is the internationally acclaimed author of seven award-winning novels, three books of poetry and numerous short stories. As a novelist, Urquhart is well known for her evocative style which blends history with the present day. Her first novel, The Whirlpool (published 1986), gained her international recognition when she became the first Canadian to win France's prestigious Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger (Best Foreign Book Award). Her subsequent novels were even more successful. Away, published in 1993, won the Trillium Award and was a national bestseller. In 1997, her fourth novel, The Underpainter, won the Governor General's Literary Award.
Jane Urquhart was born June 21, 1949, in Little Longlac, a small mining town in northern Ontario, the daughter of a mining engineer, Walter Andrew Carter, and Marian Quinn. Quinn grew up on a farm with a large family of six brothers and one sister. After their marriage, the couple moved to Little Longlac for Carter’s work. It was there that they had three children, Urquhart being the youngest and their only daughter. The family’s heritage made a lasting impact on Urquhart’s writing. Her mother’s Irish ancestors were immigrants who arrived in Canada in the mid nineteenth century during the potato famine. Both of Urquhart’s parents had witnessed the trials of World War One and World War Two. With such a background, Urquhart’s childhood was filled with the stories of Ireland and settlement in Canada. "The women are the people who pass the stories down through the generations in any family," Urquhart says. "Occasionally, one of the men would tell a story. When they did, it was a very exciting event, and it was often war-related. But the women were constantly gossiping. I've always been a great believer that gossip is not an evil thing. I see it as an investigation of human nature."
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