Born August 28, 1913, died on December 2, 1995 at the age of 82. Robertson Davies was a true Canadian -- born in a small Ontario town to immigrant parents, proud of his Welsh background but at the same time he defined and helped establish the modern Canadian personality. |
Born August 28, 1913. Died on December 2, 1995 at the age of 82. |
Growing up, Davies was surrounded by language, his father being a newspaper man, and both his parents voracious readers. He, in turn, read everything he could. |
Robertson Davies was a true Canadian -- born in a small Ontario town to immigrant parents, and proud of his Welsh background, he also helped defined the modern Canadian personality. |
While Davies spent his first twenty-three working years at various newspapers in small town Ontario, his first passion was for the theatre, which is where he met and married his wife, Brenda. He was a playwright and director for many years, in England and in Canada. |
Growing up, Davies was surrounded by language. His father was a newspaper man, and both his parents were voracious readers. He, in turn, read everything he could. While Davies spent his first twenty-three working years at various newspapers in small town Ontario, his first passion was for the theatre, which is where he met and married his wife, Brenda. He was a playwright and director for many years, in England and Canada. |
His greatest novel is probably Fifth Business (1970), a curious book which draws heavily on Davies's love of myth and knowledge of small-town mores. The narrator, like Davies, is of immigrant Canadian background, with a father who runs the town paper. In a book full of singular characters, the central character is a simple, mentally defective woman named Mary Dempster, who may or may not be a saint. |