Randy Boyagoda
| Randy Boyagoda | |
|---|---|
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| Born | 1976 Oshawa, Ontario |
| Occupation | Writer and Professor |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Period | 2005–present |
| Website | |
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Soharn Randy Boyagoda (born 1976) is a Canadian writer, intellectual and critic best known for his novels Governor of the Northern Province (2006) and Beggar's Feast (2011) and his biography of Richard John Neuhaus (2015). He is the Principal and Vice President of the University of St. Michael's College in Toronto where he holds the Basilian Chair in Christianity, Arts and Letters. Boyagoda is also a member of the University of Toronto's English Department as well as the President of PEN Canada.
Boyagoda's parents immigrated to Canada from Sri Lanka in 1967 and settled in Oshawa, Ontario, where he was born in 1976. He completed a Bachelor of Arts degree at the University of Toronto in 1999. He received a Master of Arts degree in 2001 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 2005 from Boston University, after which he held a postdoctoral fellowship at Notre Dame University. After serving as Chair of the English Department and as Associate Professor of American Studies at Ryerson University, he became the founding Director of Zone Learning for the university, a position which involves leading the university's effort to provide students from across its programs with opportunities to pursue entrepreneurship in on-campus business incubators. In 2016 Boyagoda was named Principal and Vice President of the University of St. Michael's College and was appointed to the Basilia Chair in Christianity Arts and Letters. He is also became a member of the University of Toronto's English department. As a professor, he teaches courses on the politics of the American novel and literary non-fiction. A novelist, public intellectual, cultural commentator, and literary critic, Boyagoda regularly contributes to a variety of British and North American publications and media. He lives in Toronto with his wife and four daughters.
Boyagoda's first novel, Governor of the Northern Province, was nominated for the prestigious Scotiabank Giller Prize and published to national acclaim. The deeply satirical novel told the tale of Sam Bokarie, an ex–African warlord who moves to small-town Canada to capitalize on its zealous hospitality. Books in Canada commented, "In his take-no-prisoners novel about politics, immigration, and rock-solid Canadian naiveté, Randy Boyagoda emerges as the Evelyn Waugh of the North." It was described by the National Post as an "auspicious debut."
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