| Michel Basilières | |
| Birth Date: | 1960 |
| Birth Place: | Montreal, Quebec |
| Occupation: | Novelist |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Fiction |
| Notableworks: | Black Bird |
| Years Active: | 2003-present |
| Awards: | Amazon.ca First Novel Award (2004) |
Michel Basilières (born 1960 in Montreal) is a Canadian writer, best known for his 2003 debut novel Black Bird.[1]
Basilières, the son of a Québécois father and an English Canadian mother, grew up as an anglophone despite his French surname.[2] He studied creative writing at Concordia University, but dropped out before graduating, and spent much of his adult life working in bookstores in both Montreal and Toronto.[1]
Black Bird was published in 2003 as part of Knopf Canada's New Faces of Fiction series of works by emerging writers.[3] A comic, magic realist take on the October Crisis of 1970,[3] the novel won the 2004 Books in Canada First Novel Award,[4] and was shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour[5] and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Novel.[4]
Following his award win, Basilières was a freelance book reviewer for the Toronto Star, the National Post and The Globe and Mail, and taught creative writing at the University of Toronto.
His second novel, A Free Man, published in 2015,[6] was a ReLit Award finalist in 2016.
| 2004 | Black Bird | Books in Canada First Novel Award | Winner | [7] | |
| Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Novel | Shortlist | ||||
| Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour | Shortlist | ||||
| 2016 | ReLit Award for Novel | Shortlist |