Canadian writer and activist
Gwethalyn Graham (January 18, 1913 – November 25, 1965) was a Canadian writer and activist, whose 1944 novel
Earth and High Heaven was the first Canadian book to reach number one on the
New York Times Best Seller list .
[1] Graham won the
Governor General's Award for English-language fiction twice, for her first novel Swiss Sonata in 1938,
[2] and for Earth and High Heaven in 1944.
[1]
Background
She was born Gwethalyn Graham Erichsen-Brown , to wealthy
Toronto parents. Her father was a lawyer. At 19, she was a student at
Smith College in
Massachusetts , but dropped out and eloped with
John McNaught , the son of her father's business partner.
[1] They divorced after two years, and Graham moved to the city of
Westmount on the island of
Montreal , where she became a close friend and associate of
Hugh MacLennan ,
F. R. Scott ,
Thérèse Casgrain and
Pierre Trudeau . Graham subsequently married David Yalden-Thomson, a
philosophy professor at
McGill University ; they subsequently also divorced.
[1]
Graham's sister,
Isabel LeBourdais , was a journalist whose 1966 book
The Trial of Steven Truscott played a key role in disputing the evidence that led to
Steven Truscott 's controversial murder conviction,
[3] and her brother John Erichsen-Brown was a diplomat with the Canadian
Department of External Affairs .
[4]
Career
She wrote two abandoned early novels
[1] before completing Swiss Sonata , which was published in 1938.
[5]
Graham was also an outspoken activist against
anti-Semitism and anti-
French Canadian discrimination;
[6] Earth and High Heaven depicted an
interfaith romance between a
Protestant woman from
Montreal and a
Jewish man from
Northern Ontario .
[7] The novel was optioned by
Samuel Goldwyn for a film that was to star
Katharine Hepburn ;
[8] however, the film was never made, as Goldwyn abandoned the project after the similarly themed
Gentleman's Agreement came out while Earth and High Heaven was still in development.
[1]
Graham's only published book after Earth and High Heaven was Dear Enemies , a non-fiction collection of her correspondence with journalist
Solange Chaput-Rolland about English-French relations in Canada.
[1] She had postponed her planned third novel to work on the book.
[1] She also wrote a theatrical play, Trouble at Weti ,
[9] and radio plays for
CBC Radio ,
[1] and translated works by writers from Quebec, most notably
André Laurendeau 's play Two Terrible Women (Deux femmes terribles) , into English.
[1]
Graham died in 1965 of an undiagnosed brain tumour, aged 52.
[1] Her illness and death resulted in the cancellation of a planned sequel to Dear Enemies .
[1]
Both Swiss Sonata and Earth and High Heaven were reissued by
Cormorant Books in 2004.
[10] Graham is the subject of a biography, Gwethalyn Graham: a Liberated Woman in a Conventional Age , by Barbara Meadowcroft (Toronto: Women's Press, 2008).
References
^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
k
l "Gwethalyn Graham: Two fiction awards won by Montrealer".
The Globe and Mail , November 26, 1965.
^ "Honors for Canadian Writers".
The Globe and Mail , April 29, 1939.
^ "Isabel LeBourdais 1909–2003: Her book said Truscott trial wrong".
The Globe and Mail , April 14, 2003.
^ "Erichsen-Brown Goes to Belgium As Counsellor".
The Globe and Mail , August 20, 1953.
^ "A Toronto Girl in Switzerland".
The Globe and Mail , March 19, 1938.
^ "Novel No Tract: Fair Play For Jews Demanded".
The Globe and Mail , October 3, 1944.
^ "Canadian Novel Challenges Montreal's Race Prejudice".
The Globe and Mail , October 7, 1944.
^ "Toronto Novelist Sells Film Rights for $100,000".
The Globe and Mail , September 2, 1944.
^ "2 Novels by Canadians Due Soon on Broadway".
The Globe and Mail , January 7, 1950.
^ "Romeo and Juliet in Westmount".
The Globe and Mail , March 13, 2004.
External links
1930s 1940s
Ringuet ,
Thirty Acres (1940)
Alan Sullivan , Three Came to Ville Marie (1941)
G. Herbert Sallans , Little Man (1942)
Thomas Head Raddall , The Pied Piper of Dipper Creek (1943)
Gwethalyn Graham ,
Earth and High Heaven (1944)
Hugh MacLennan ,
Two Solitudes (1945)
Winifred Bambrick , Continental Revue (1946)
Gabrielle Roy ,
The Tin Flute (1947)
Hugh MacLennan ,
The Precipice (1948)
Philip Child , Mr. Ames Against Time (1949)
1950s
Germaine Guèvremont , The Outlander (1950)
Morley Callaghan , The Loved and the Lost (1951)
David Walker , The Pillar (1952)
David Walker , Digby (1953)
Igor Gouzenko , The Fall of a Titan (1954)
Lionel Shapiro , The Sixth of June (1955)
Adele Wiseman , The Sacrifice (1956)
Gabrielle Roy ,
Street of Riches (1957)
Colin McDougall ,
Execution (1958)
Hugh MacLennan ,
The Watch That Ends the Night (1959)
1960s 1970s
Dave Godfrey , The New Ancestors (1970)
Mordecai Richler ,
St. Urbain's Horseman (1971)
Robertson Davies ,
The Manticore (1972)
Rudy Wiebe , The Temptations of Big Bear (1973)
Margaret Laurence ,
The Diviners (1974)
Brian Moore ,
The Great Victorian Collection (1975)
Marian Engel ,
Bear (1976)
Timothy Findley ,
The Wars (1977)
Alice Munro ,
Who Do You Think You Are? (1978)
Jack Hodgins , The Resurrection of Joseph Bourne (1979)
1980s
George Bowering , Burning Water (1980)
Mavis Gallant , Home Truths: Selected Canadian Stories (1981)
Guy Vanderhaeghe ,
Man Descending (1982)
Leon Rooke ,
Shakespeare's Dog (1983)
Josef Škvorecký , The Engineer of Human Souls (1984)
Margaret Atwood ,
The Handmaid's Tale (1985)
Alice Munro ,
The Progress of Love (1986)
M. T. Kelly , A Dream Like Mine (1987)
David Adams Richards ,
Nights Below Station Street (1988)
Paul Quarrington ,
Whale Music (1989)
1990s
Nino Ricci ,
Lives of the Saints (1990)
Rohinton Mistry ,
Such a Long Journey (1991)
Michael Ondaatje ,
The English Patient (1992)
Carol Shields ,
The Stone Diaries (1993)
Rudy Wiebe , A Discovery of Strangers (1994)
Greg Hollingshead , The Roaring Girl (1995)
Guy Vanderhaeghe ,
The Englishman's Boy (1996)
Jane Urquhart ,
The Underpainter (1997)
Diane Schoemperlen , Forms of Devotion (1998)
Matt Cohen ,
Elizabeth and After (1999)
2000s
Michael Ondaatje ,
Anil's Ghost (2000)
Richard B. Wright ,
Clara Callan (2001)
Gloria Sawai , A Song for Nettie Johnson (2002)
Douglas Glover , Elle (2003)
Miriam Toews ,
A Complicated Kindness (2004)
David Gilmour ,
A Perfect Night to Go to China (2005)
Peter Behrens ,
The Law of Dreams (2006)
Michael Ondaatje ,
Divisadero (2007)
Nino Ricci , The Origin of Species (2008)
Kate Pullinger , The Mistress of Nothing (2009)
2010s
Dianne Warren , Cool Water (2010)
Patrick deWitt ,
The Sisters Brothers (2011)
Linda Spalding , The Purchase (2012)
Eleanor Catton ,
The Luminaries (2013)
Thomas King ,
The Back of the Turtle (2014)
Guy Vanderhaeghe , Daddy Lenin and Other Stories (2015)
Madeleine Thien ,
Do Not Say We Have Nothing (2016)
Joel Thomas Hynes ,
We'll All Be Burnt in Our Beds Some Night (2017)
Sarah Henstra ,
The Red Word (2018)
Joan Thomas ,
Five Wives (2019)
2020s
International National Academics Other