Канада жазушысы Джон Уэсли Меткалф туралы

Canadian writer, editor and critic

John Wesley Metcalf (born 12 November 1938) is an English born Canadian writer, editor and critic.

Metcalf was born in Carlisle, England on 12 November 1938. His father, Thomas Metcalf, was a clergyman and his mother, Gladys Moore Metcalf, was a teacher. Metcalf immigrated to Canada in 1962. It was in Canada that he began to write. In 1975 he married Myrna Teitelbaum and now lives with her in Ottawa, Ontario. His writing is rich in intense emotion invoking imagery, which he draws from his experiences as an educator in Canada. Many in his field view Metcalf as an authority in writing and criticism.

Metcalf gained an Honours Bachelor of Arts and a Certificate in Education from the University of Bristol, prior to his immigration to Canada.

His first attempt at writing fiction came when he entered the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Short Story Essay Contest which was followed by eight of his short stories being accepted by the Vancouver based magazine Prism International. He supplemented his writing career with teaching jobs. His first novel Going Down Slow follows a young teacher as described above as he deals with morality in the workplace, and his second novel, General Ludd, describes a similar character, fighting the implementation of communications technology in his workplace. The Teeth of My Father is a collection of short stories with the common theme of artists' relationships with society and their artwork and personal life. This theme was followed by, and extended in Metcalf's Adult Entertainment. Girl in Gingham is a collection of two novellas. The first, Private Parts, chronicles one narrator's "sexual and spiritual childhood and adolescence". The second, Girl in Gingham, follows another narrator's search for the perfect mate via an online dating service, with the undertone being his realization of people trying to invent themselves to fit what others want, or the ideals of their culture. Short story and Novella forms are Metcalf's preferred form of writing. Metcalf describes that when writing these forms "you got to get it dead right. A beat or two off and it's ruined." Metcalf is a long time critic of Canadian "cultural and educational inadequacies", and published Kicking Against the Pricks in 1982 to showcase this frustration. It was a collection of 8 essays and included an interview with himself. To encourage debate on this theme within the literary community, he published The Bumper Book in 1986 and followed it with Carry On Bumping in 1988. Both collections consisted of contentious essays focussing on problems with Canadian literature. In an interview with Geoff Hancock, Metcalf asserted that "the quality of the education has declined everywhere over the last 50 years as the number to be educated has risen". He is in "conflict with the dominant nature of North American society" and the influence it has on education.

Forde Abroad won the 1996 Gold Medal for Fiction at the National Magazine Awards. The Estuary won University of Western Ontario's President's Medal for the Best Story of 1969. Metcalf was appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada in 2004.