Steven Galloway

Canadian novelist and a former professor

Steven Galloway (born July 13, 1975) is a Canadian novelist and a former professor at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of the award winning novel The Cellist of Sarajevo (2008).

Galloway was born in Vancouver, and raised in Kamloops, British Columbia. He attended the University College of the Cariboo and the University of British Columbia (UBC).

Galloway taught creative writing at the University of British Columbia for many years. He also taught writing at Simon Fraser University. He published his first novel, Finnie Walsh, in 2000, a second novel, Ascension, in 2003, and followed this with a third book, The Cellist of Sarajevo, in 2008. In 2013 Galloway became a tenured associate professor at UBC, and served as acting chair of the creative writing program. In 2014 he published his fourth novel, The Confabulist. In 2015 he was confirmed in the position of chair.

Galloway's debut novel, Finnie Walsh (2000), was nominated for the Amazon. ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award. It was described as "a work about the love of hockey and the way two boys form a bond that carries them through life's tragedies and trials". Galloway was recognized for successfully portraying a child's perspective without "giving a child an adult's perspective". The ethnic and economic diversity of the characters had critics describing it as a "truly Canadian book both in content and sensibility".

Galloway's third novel, The Cellist of Sarajevo (2008), was nominated for the International Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the 2009 Evergreen Award, the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature and the Borders Original Voices Award. It was heralded as "the work of an expert" by The Guardian, and has become an international bestseller with rights sold in over 30 countries. The novel is set during the siege of Sarajevo in the mid 1990s and explores the dilemmas of ordinary people caught in the crisis. The novel follows the lives of three fictional citizens of Sarajevo as they struggle to survive the war, including one who seeks to protect the cellist: "He has said he will do this for twenty two days. This is the eighth. People see him. The world has seen him. We cannot allow him to be killed." The novel examines the gentleness found in humanity and the lasting and healing power of art. Vedran Smailović did not learn of the book until after it had been published. Galloway had been advised to contact Smajlović, who had purposefully embraced a quiet, private life in Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland, but did not do so. and pointing out differences between the story and his actual life. Galloway, claimed that Smailović's playing of the cello as a protest was a public act, Galloway sent the cellist a signed copy of the book.

The Confabulist is a story told some time after 2010 by an elderly man named Martin Strauss who claims to have killed Harry Houdini. Mostly employing flashbacks, the novel alternates between Houdini's point of view and Strauss's point of view to describe the years leading up to their 1926 encounter in Montreal. Several aspects are historically accurate including attempts to have Houdini join espionage circles, and his efforts to champion skepticism over spiritualism. However, it gradually becomes clear that Strauss is an unreliable narrator. The Confabulist was shortlisted for The Rogers Trust Fiction Prize and received favourable reviews from Marcia Kaye of The Toronto Star and Keith Donohue of The Washington Post. In the National Post, Zoe Whittall said "But this is Steven Galloway we're talking about — a brilliant Vancouver novelist, and the author of The Cellist of Sarajevo — and I believe that, no matter the setting or conceit, a good novelist can make anything worth your while. And Galloway is nothing if not a good novelist. I'm happy to report that The Confabulist, his fourth novel, is a stunning achievement." Conversely, Jenny Hendrix of the New York Times criticized the narrative as heavy handed.