Robert Kroetsch

Robert Paul Kroetsch OC (June 26, 1927 – June 21, 2011) was a Canadian novelist, poet and nonfiction writer. In his fiction and critical essays, as well as in the journal he co-founded, boundary 2, he was an influential figure in Canada in introducing ideas about postmodernism.

He was born in Heisler, Alberta. He began his academic career at Binghamton University (State University of New York); after returning to Canada in the mid-1970s he taught at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg. Kroetsch spent several years in Victoria, British Columbia, before returning to Winnipeg, then to retirement in Alberta, where he continued to write. In 2004 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Bibliography

Novels

• But We Are Exiles – 1965
• The Words of My Roaring – 1966
• The Studhorse Man – 1969 (winner of the 1969 Governor General's Award for Fiction)
• Gone Indian – 1973
• Badlands – 1975
• What the Crow Said – 1978
• Alibi – 1983
• The Puppeteer – 1992
• The Man from the Creeks – 1998
  • (in German) transl. Martina Tichy: Klondike. Die Ballade von Lou und Dangerous Dan McGrew. Schneekluth, Munich 2005

Poetry

• The Stone Hammer Poems – 1975
• The Ledger – 1975
• Seed Catalogue – 1977
• The Sad Phoenician – 1979
• The Criminal Intensities of Love as Paradise – 1981
• Field Notes: Collected Poems – 1981
• Advice to My Friends – 1985
• Excerpts from the Real Worlds: A Prose Poem in Ten Parts – 1986
• Completed Field Notes: The Long Poems of Robert Kroetsch – 1989
• The Hornbooks of Rita K – 2001 (nominated for a Governor General's Award)
• The Snowbird Poems – 2004
• Too Bad: Sketches Toward a Self-Portrait – 2010
• I'm Getting Old Now- unknown

Other

• Alberta – 1968
• The Crow Journals – 1980
• Labyrinths of Voice: Conversations with Robert Kroetsch – 1982
• Letter to Salonika – 1983
• The Lovely Treachery of Words: Essays Selected and New – 1989
• A Likely Story: The Writing Life – 1995
• Abundance: The Mackie House Conversations about the Writing Life – 2007 (with John Lent)

See also

• Canadian literature
• Canadian poetry
• List of Canadian poets

Further reading

• Simona Bertacco: Out of place. The writings of Robert Kroetsch. Peter Lang, Berne 2002
• Francis Zichy: Disenchanted Modernity in Robert Kroetsch's "The Studhorse Man." Biology and Culture; Sex and Gender; Eugenics and Contraception; Writing and Reading. Peter Lang, New York 2011
• Fiona McMahon: Robert Kroetsch and archival culture in the Canadian long poem, in Études canadiennes. Revue interdisciplinaire en France, 74, 2013, p. 73–85 en ligne

External links

• Robert Kroetsch Biography
• Robert Kroetsch fonds (papers) at Archives and Special Collections, University of Calgary
• Complete list of literature (primary, secondary), University of Manitoba, 1965–2004
• Kroetsch's item at Athabasca University, further links, e.g. to an interview with him