Raymond Fraser
| Raymond Fraser | |
|---|---|
Raymond Fraser in his Paris days
|
|
| Born |
May 8, 1941 Chatham, New Brunswick |
| Occupation | author |
| Language | English |
| Nationality | Canadian |
| Alma mater | St Thomas University |
| Notable awards |
Order of New Brunswick (2012) Lieutenant-Governor's Award for High Achievement in the Arts (2009) Honorary Doctor of Letters degree, St Thomas University (2016) |
Raymond Fraser is a Canadian author.
Born in Chatham, New Brunswick, Raymond Fraser attended St Thomas University 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 date from this period.
While living in Montreal 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 1985 essay "In the End, a Beginning: The Montreal Story Tellers", critic Keith Garebian 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."
To date (2016) Fraser has published thirteen books of fiction, three of non-fiction, and six poetry collections.
"Virtually all Raymond Fraser's fiction deals with a time and a place over his own lifetime, and is part of a larger entity covering a very wide range of inner and outer experience, providing endless pleasure, entertainment, and insight, both comic and tragic." ROBERT GIBBS, author, critic, & Professor Emeritus of English, UNB
Fraser’s writings have been praised by such literary figures as Farley Mowat, Irving Layton, Louis Dudek, Alden Nowlan, Sheila Watson, Leonard Cohen, Hugh Garner, and Michael Cook. Over the years he's received four Canada Council Grants, six New Brunswick Arts Board Grants, and the Canadian Writers’ Trust Woodcock Grant.
...
Wikipedia