| K.R. Byggdin | |
| Occupation: | novelist |
| Period: | 2020s–present |
| Nationality: | Canadian |
| Notableworks: | Wonder World |
K.R. Byggdin (born 1991) is a Canadian novelist from Halifax, Nova Scotia.[1]
Byggdin began publishing short fiction in 2018, with publications in The Antigonish Review, Grain, and others.
Their debut novel, Wonder World, was published by Enfield & Wizenty (Great Plains Press) in 2022.[2] The novel tells the story of a 27-year-old pansexual Mennonite man named Isaac Funk who returns to his small Manitoba town after years on the East Coast.[3]
Wonder World won the Thomas Head Raddall Award at the 2023 Atlantic Book Awards,[4] and was a finalist for the 2023 ReLit Award for fiction.[5]
Byggdin grew up in Niverville, Manitoba, where they attended a Mennonite church and due to their close contact with Mennonite communities, jokes that they are "Mennonite by osmosis."[6] They began to pursue writing as a career after being exposed to the writing of Miriam Toews by the town's mayor, while working in a summer job for the town government.[6]
Byggdin studied creative writing at Dalhousie University.[7]