Donna McFarlane should not be confused with Donna MacFarlane.
| Donna McFarlane | |
| Birth Date: | 1958 |
| Birth Place: | Quebec, Canada |
| Occupation: | novelist |
| Period: | 1990s |
| Notableworks: | Division of Surgery |
Donna McFarlane (born 1958)[1] is a Canadian writer, who was a shortlisted nominee for the Governor General's Award for English-language fiction at the 1994 Governor General's Awards for her novel Division of Surgery.[2] Published by Women's Press of Canada, Division of Surgery was an autobiographical novel about McFarlane's own experience in the medical system after being diagnosed with Crohn's disease.[3]
Born in Quebec and raised in Ottawa, McFarlane graduated from York University in 1982 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, and was working as a librarian at the time of her Crohn's diagnosis. The novel began life as a journal that she kept during her hospital stays, and later submitted to CKLN-FM after Arnie Achtman's documentary series Life Rattle broadcast a story about another woman battling chronic illness. Achtman helped McFarlane organize her notes into a novel, and later became McFarlane's partner.[4]
The doctor in the novel, known only by the name "The Prophet", was based on Mount Sinai Hospital surgeon Zane Cohen.[5]
At the time of her award nomination, she was working as a program coordinator for Windfall, a charity organization that distributed clothing to needy women. She subsequently published a number of short stories in literary magazines, but has not published any further books.