Henry Beissel

Henry Eric Beissel ( born April 12, 1929 in Cologne ) is a Canadian poet, playwright, translator, literary critic and editor. He has published poems, plays, nonfiction, two anthologies and numerous essays and short stories. He studied philosophy in Cologne and London. In 1951 he went to Canada.

In 1958 he was awarded the Norma Epstein Award for Creative Writing from the University of Toronto. In Edmonton, he was from 1963 to 1969, the literary- political magazine Edge out. He was an advocate of the indigenous cultures of Canada. 1973 his work Inuk and the Sun was listed, with whom he caused a stir internationally, for the first time as well as with Under Coyote 's Eye, which has been widely translated.

Beissel taught English literature, later Creative Writing at the University of Toronto. 1960 to 1962 he taught at the University of Munich, after two years at the University of Alberta ( 1962-64 ), and finally from 1966 to 1996 at Concordia University in Montreal. In 1994 he received the Walter Bauer Prize in Merseburg. Today he lives with his wife Arlette Francière in Ottawa.

Works (selection)

• New Wings for Icarus, Toronto: Coach House 1966.
• A Different Sun, Ottawa: Oberon 1976.
• Inuk and the Sun, Toronto: Gage 1980.
• Under Coyote's Eye, Dunvegan: Quadrant 1980.
• Canada. Romance and reality, Innsbruck: Penguin Publishing in 1981.
• Season of Blood, Toronto: Mosaic 1984.
• The Noose & Improvisations for Mister X, Dunvegan: Cormorant 1989.
• Dying I was Born, Waterloo, Ontario: Penumbra 1992.
• Stones to Harvest, Good Erich: Moonstone 1993.
• Across the Sun's Warp, Ottawa: Buschek 2003.