Канада жазушысы У. П. Кинселланың өмірі мен шығармашылығы

Canadian author

William Patrick "W. P." Kinsella (May 25, 1935September 16, 2016) was a Canadian novelist and short story writer, known for his novel Shoeless Joe (1982), which was adapted into the movie Field of Dreams in 1989. His work often concerned baseball, First Nations people, and Canadian culture.

William Patrick Kinsella was born in Edmonton, Alberta, the son of Irish Canadian parents, Olive Mary , a printer, and John Matthew Kinsella, a contractor. He was raised until he was 10 years old at a homestead near Darwell, Alberta, west of the city, home schooled by his mother and taking correspondence courses. "I'm one of these people who woke up at age five knowing how to read and write," he says. When he was ten years old, the family moved to Edmonton. He did not go to school until grade five, attended Parkdale School for junior high, and did not attend university until he was in his mid 30s. Kinsella was barely exposed to literature in school, saying in a 2010 interview, "One Shakespeare play and one J. M. Barrie play was the total literature of my high school years." Kinsella's literary education in his formative years came from reading and by attending all the plays at high school and any theatrical productions that made it to Edmonton. He also worked in the school library his senior year. As an adult, he held a variety of jobs in Edmonton, including as a clerk for the government of Alberta and managing a credit bureau. In 1967, he moved to Victoria, British Columbia, running a pizza restaurant called Caesar's Italian Village and driving a taxi. Although he had been writing since he was a child (winning a YMCA contest at age 14), he began taking writing courses at the University of Victoria in 1970, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in creative writing there in 1974. He earned a Master of Fine Arts in English at the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa in 1978. Before becoming a professional author, he was a professor of English at the University of Calgary.