David Arnason

David Arnason in 2001. Photo by Arni Hjartarson. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

David Arnason (born 1940) is a Canadian poet, academic, and prose author.

Life

Arnason was born in Gimli, Manitoba, the eldest of 7 children, of Baldwin and Gudrun Arnason. He is of Icelandic descent, and often writes about the Icelandic community in Canada.

He attended the University of Manitoba (U of M), where he received a B.A. in 1961 and M.A. in 1969, and the University of New Brunswick (UNB), where he received a Ph.D. in 1984.

He has taught at the U of M since 1973, and was head of the English Department from 1997 to 2006. He was Acting Head of the Department of Icelandic Language and Literature at the U of M from 1998 to 2006. His archives are held at the U of M.

He has also taught Canadian literature and creative writing in Trier, Germany; Strasbourg, France; and Tasmania.

Arnason co-founded the Journal of Canadian Fiction with John Moss in 1972. He was a co-founders of Queenston House Press in Winnipeg, and has been an editor of Turnstone Press in Winnipeg since 1975. He was chairman of the Literary Press Group and a member of the executive of the Association of Canadian Publishers. He served on the Manitoba Arts Council, 1985-1987.

Arnason was married to Carol Dahlstrom and has 3 children. He lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with his partner, Mhari Mackintosh.

Recognition

The Imagined City, edited by Arnason and Mhari Mackintosh, won both the Mary Scorer Book Award, for best book by a Manitoba publisher, and the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award in 2005.

Arnason's novel King Jerry was nominated for a Stephen Leacock Medal.

Publications

Poetry

• Marsh Burning. Winnipeg, MB: Turnstone, 1980.
• Skrag. Winnipeg, MB: Turnstone, 1987.

Novels

• King Jerry: A novel. Winnipeg, MB: Turnstone, 2001.
• The Demon Lover. Winnipeg, MB: Turnstone, 2002.
• Baldur's Song: A saga. Winnipeg, MB: Turnstone, 2010.

Short fiction

• Fifty Stories and a Piece Of Advice. Winnipeg, MB: Turnstone, 1982.
• The Circus Performers' Bar. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1984.
• The Happiest Man in the World, and other stories. Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1989.
• The Pagan Wall. Vancouver : Talonbooks, 1992.
• The Dragon and the Dry Goods Princess (stories). Winnipeg, MB: Turnstone, 1994.
• If Pigs Could Fly: Stories. Winnipeg, MB: Turnstone, 1995.
• Selected for You: The stories of David Arnason. Winnipeg, MB: Turnstone, 2013.

Non-fiction

• Isolation in Canadian literature. Toronto: Macmillan, 1975.
• The Icelanders. Winnipeg, MB: Turnstone, 1981.
• The Development of Prairie Realism: Robert J. Stead, Douglas Durkin, Martha Ostenso and Frederick Philip Grove. Ottawa: National Library of Canada, 1981.
• The New Icelanders: A North American community. Winnipeg, MB: Turnstone, 1994.

Edited

• Nineteenth Century Canadian Stories. Toronto: Macmillan, 1976.
• The Imagined City: A literary history of Winnipeg (edited by David Arnason & Mhari Mackintosh). Winnipeg, MB: Turnstone Press, 2005.

Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.

See also

• List of Canadian poets

References

Fonds

• David Arnason fonds at the University of Manitoba

External links

Poems

• from "Skrag"

Books

• David Arnason at Amazon.ca

About

• David Arnason Authors' Page, Talonbooks
• Héliane Ventura, "“The fiction that makes us real”: Playful accreditation in David Arnason's “The Sunfish”," JSSE