Friday, June 05, 2009
Monday, February 23, 2009
Commonwealth Writers' Prize

BLACKSTRAP HAWCO by Newfoundland author Kenneth J. Harvey has been nominated for the international Commonwealth Writers' Prize (Best Book, Canada and Caribbean region).
The two regional winners (for Best Book and Best First Book) from Canada and the Caribbean will be announced on 11 March 2009.
The two overall winners, chosen by an international panel of six judges coming together in New Zealand, will be announced on 16 May at the Auckland Writers' and Readers Festival (AWRF).
The overall winner receives £10,000, and will take part in various international events, including a week-long celebration in New Zealand, and an audience with Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace.
Friday, January 02, 2009
#1 Best Book Out of Canada, 2008
Friday, December 12, 2008
First Sale in China for Harvey
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Saturday, November 22, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
"Thrilling" - Edmonton Journal

-The Edmonton Journal
"Of course, Newfoundland is already a place of myth and mystery to Canadians. Most of us have never been to The Rock, and our understanding of the place doesn't go much beyond the twin stereotypes of the jolly drunk and the unemployed fisherman. Harvey's novel may help to remedy that, and not just because it's almost entirely devoid of jollity. Fifteen years in the making, it's also one of the most successfully ambitious Canadian novels in recent memory."
Friday, October 10, 2008
"Awe-inspiring" - The Vancouver Sun

"There are moments that are literally awe-inspiring and writing so skilled it almost brought me to tears... more ambitious than any Canadian novel in recent memory."
-The Vancouver Sun
________________
BLACKSTRAP HAWCO
September 27, 2008
"The Newfoundland writer has, over his lengthy career, demonstrated remarkable skill and range, from the magic realism of The Town That Forgot How to Breathe to the cold, parsed minimalism of Inside to the more experimental of his short stories."
"From the role of missionaries in the outport communities to a riveting account of the seal hunt, from rapes to infidelities, from petty crimes to everyday life, from a 13-month pregnancy and an invasion of birds to the life of a shipwrecked ancestor, the first half of Blackstrap Hawco is a polyvalent work that eschews chronological order in favour of an almost cubist sensibility."
"A hundred pages later, I began to suspect that the novel might just be the Canadian equivalent of Gabriel García Márquez's epochal One Hundred Years of Solitude. "
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Monday, September 15, 2008
Blackstrap Hawco Longlisted for Giller Prize

Blackstrap Hawco has been longlisted for
The Scotiabank Giller Prize
The Scotiabank Giller Prize awards $50,000 annually to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English and $5,000 to each of the finalists. The Scotiabank Giller Prize is named in honour of the late literary journalist Doris Giller and was founded in 1994 by her husband Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch.
|
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Saturday, September 13, 2008
"Something Very Great Indeed" -The National Post
"Kenneth J. Harvey, Atlantic gale, continues to astonish.
And in Blackstrap Hawco, he has given Newfoundland,
not to mention the world, something very great indeed."
"Canadian authors have largely resisted the urge to write the corresponding Great Canadian Novel, an almost certainly futile task. Mordecai Richler came as close to pulling it off in Solomon Gursky Was Here as anyone is likely to, but most attempts founder on the fact that the country is too broad and variegated to be captured in any depth, no matter how big the Big Book. A province or region might be though, which is Kenneth J. Harvey's wholly successful strategy in his rich and tender new novel."
-Frank Moher, The National Post
Saturday, September 13th, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Tour Dates for Blackstrap Hawco
Ticket info: writersatwoodypoint.com
Woody Point, NL
August 14/2008, 8 pm
----------------------------------
Book Launch, sponsored by Downhome
Arts & Culture Centre, Third Floor Gallery
St. John's, NL
September 9/2008, 7 - 9 pm
----------------------------------------------------------
Chapters
41 Mic Mac Boulevard
Info: chapters.indigo.ca
Dartmouth, NS
September 15/2008, 7 pm
----------------------------------------------------------
Harbourfront Reading Series
Harbourfront Centre
Info: readings.org
Toronto, ON
September 17/2008
----------------------------------------------------------
Banff-Calgary International Writers Festival
(Oct 14 - 19) date to be confirmed
Info: wordfest.com
Calgary, AB
October 14/2008
----------------------------------------------------------
Vancouver International Writers Festival
(Oct 21 - 26) date to be confirmed
Info: writersfest.bc.ca
Vancouver, BC
October 21/2008
-----------------------------------------------------------
Ottawa International Writers Festival
(Oct 18 - 26) date to be confirmed
Info: writersfestival.org
Ottawa, ON
October 26/2008
------------------------------------------------------------
Keshen Goodman Public Library
Halifax, NS
November 17/2008, 7 pm
-------------------------------------------------------------
Chapters
70 Kenmount Road
Info: chapters.indigo.ca
St. John's, NL
December 4/2008, 7 pm
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Monday, September 08, 2008
PagesBooks.ca Interview
To read the full interview, please click below:
http://www.pagesbooks.ca/features.php?type=feature&id=254
Friday, June 20, 2008
Friday, June 13, 2008
Starred Review for Blackstrap Hawco

Quill & Quire (Canada's Magazine of Book News and Reviews)
July, 2008
★ starred review
"Blackstrap Hawco is in every way a large novel: large in scope, large in ambition, and large in achievement."
"The novel, which includes passages lifted verbatim from the author’s previous short stories, as well as historical journal entries, newspaper articles, and the like, exists in the interstices between fiction and history, and it calls into question the very nature of narrative itself. 'Because they do not want the truth,' one character muses late in the novel, 'they want the story.' What Harvey has provided is a story that acts as a kind of Möbius strip, folding in on itself until history and legend become all but indistinguishable." - Steven W. Beattie
Monday, June 02, 2008
Monday, May 26, 2008
Thursday, May 22, 2008
A Transcomposite Narrative
June,
2008:
Harvill Secker
UK
September,
2008:
Random House
Canada
"BLACKSTRAP HAWCO is a story of Newfoundland from its beginnings to its present, and stretching forward to its future. The intensely physical lives of Blackstrap Hawco and his people are as vivid as the blood they spill. The book is gripping and painful but redeemed by love. Kenneth J. Harvey demonstrates the pulse of what it means to be alive."
828 pages, Hardcover
Friday, January 11, 2008
Monday, December 03, 2007
Sunday, December 02, 2007
INSIDE in The Cleveland Plain Dealer


Tuesday, November 06, 2007
Four Titles in Russia

This is the first foreign sale for Directions for an Opened Body, Harvey's first book, a collection of stories, originally published in 1990 by The Mercury Press.
Saturday, October 06, 2007
INSIDE in Entertainment Weekly
Reviewed
October 12, 2007
"Harvey illuminates the inner world of the improbably named Mister Myrden, who receives exoneration after 14 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. Released to his money-grubbing wife, roughneck friends, and resentful grown children, Myrden tries to forge a more meaningful life, a struggle Harvey beautifully captures in broken, staccato sentences. Myrden's journey goes from blue-collar bars to a snooty Toronto hotel to the Spanish countryside ("Lemon trees. Everything crystal clear at a distance. Unreal") until Harvey expertly steers his troubled, inarticulate hero toward the fate he's been tempting all along. "
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
INSIDE Nominated for 2008 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

St. John's Public Libraries is pleased to announce its nomination to the longlist for the prestigious IMPAC Dublin Award, the largest international prize if its kind:
Inside, by Kenneth J. Harvey, will appear on the longlist of titles competing for the 2008 prize.
The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is an international fiction award, open to fiction written in any language. The winning author gains recognition throughout the world, plus a prize of 100,000 Euros.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Monday, July 16, 2007
PW Reviews INSIDE
Friday, June 01, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
Friday, March 30, 2007
INSIDE Wins 2006 Winterset Award

.jpg)
Newfoundland author, Kenneth J. Harvey, has won the 2006 Winterset Award for his novel INSIDE.
The Winterset, administered by the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council(NLAC), celebrates excellence in Newfoundland and Labrador writing.
The two other nominees were: Ken Babstock for Airstream Land Yacht and Russell Wangersky for The Hour of Bad Decisions.
Harvey received the $5,000 award at a ceremony on Thursday, March 29th at Government House in St. John’s, Newfoundland. The Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador is Honourary Patron of the Award.
Kenneth J. Harvey and Winterset juror (and Newfoundland novelist) Edward Riche having tea at Government House (where the award was announced) in St. John's on Thursday, March 29th.
2006 Winterset Award reception.
Friday, March 09, 2007
INSIDE Wins 2006 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Wednesday, February 07, 2007
The Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize

INSIDE, by Newfoundland author Kenneth J. Harvey, has been nominated for the 2006 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
The award is sponsored by Canadian media giant, ROGERS, and is administered and promoted by The Writers' Trust.
On March 7th, the selected winner will receive $15,000, with $2,000 presented to each of the finalists.
The Rogers Writers' Trust Award is one of the annual Writers' Trust Awards, worth a total of $123,000.
Past winners of the award include: Alice Munro, Austin Clarke and Joseph Boyden.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Inside

A MAN WRONGFULLY CONVICTED OF MURDER
"A tough, unrelenting novel, thrilling and darkly eloquent and, in the end, a celebration of what life offers in even the harshest of circumstances."
—John Banville, Booker Prize-winning author of The Sea
"CanLit's most unknown genius... There is no other writer like him, Canadian or otherwise."
— Lisa Gabriele, The Globe & Mail
"Edgy, redemptive and utterly compelling."
—Sandra Martin, Elle Canada
"Compassionate, endlessly inventive and daring...the work of a major writer, and one who single-handedly shifts our literary centre of gravity to the east."
—Frank Moher, The National Post
"Inside is classic Harvey. No one else can write like this."
—Bill Gaston, author of Sointula
"Inside is the kind of novel that brings temporary life back to such cliches as 'gripping' and 'page-turner'... Myrden will probably stand as one of the more vivid and full-blooded characters of all the Canadian novels being published this year."
— Nathan Whitlock, The Toronto Star
"A writer like no other."
—Alistair MacLeod, author of No Great Mischief
"An extravagantly haunted imagination."
—J.M. Coetzee, Nobel Prize-winning author of Disgrace
"Unsettling and yet exhilarating... Readers will emerge battered, but somehow invigorated."
— Stephen Knight, Quill & Quire
"Deeply affecting for its dark realism."
— Mark Callanan, The Independent
"A gripping, moving story... a great book and a real achievement."
— Joan Sullivan, The Telegram (St. John's)
. . .
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Sunday, December 31, 2006
Sunday, December 24, 2006
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Saturday, December 16, 2006
Sunday, December 10, 2006
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Saturday, December 02, 2006
Saturday, November 25, 2006
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
Tuesday, October 03, 2006
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Saturday, September 23, 2006
Giller Prize

INSIDE has been longlisted for the Giller Prize.
The shortlist for this year’s Giller Prize will be announced at a news conference on Tuesday, October 3 at the Four Seasons Hotel in Toronto. The finalists will be honoured and a winner announced at a gala black tie dinner and awards ceremony to be held on November 7th.
The Right Honourable Adrienne Clarkson and distinguished Canadian authors Alice Munro and Michael Winter comprise the 2006 Giller Prize jury panel.
The Giller Prize awards $40,000 annually to the author of the best Canadian novel or short story collection published in English and $2,500 to each of the finalists.
The Giller Prize is named in honour of the late literary journalist Doris Giller and was founded in 1994 by her husband Toronto businessman Jack Rabinovitch.
Monday, September 11, 2006
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Globe & Mail Feature

A feature on Kenneth J. Harvey ran on page three of the Arts Section, August 22nd.
Click below to read:
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
Thursday, August 10, 2006
Drenka Willen buys INSIDE

Legendary US editor, Drenka Willen at Harcourt, has bought US rights to Newfoundland author Kenneth J. Harvey's novel INSIDE.
Willen's authors include three Novel laureates: José Saramago, Octavio Paz and Wislawa Szymborska.
Umberto Eco, Gunter Grass, Arturo Perez-Reverte, Cees Nooteboom and Georges Konrad are also Willen's authors.
Harcourt will publish INSIDE in the fall of 2007
Friday, August 04, 2006
Harvey Wins Italy's Libro del Mare

(Kenneth J. Harvey with Claudio Borea [left], the mayor of Sanremo, and Monica Belmondo, Harvey's Italian interpreter [click photo to enlarge])
Newfoundland author Kenneth J. Harvey has become the first Canadian to win Italy's 'Libro del Mare' for his book The Town That Forgot How to Breathe (La città che dimenticò di respirare).
Harvey received the award in Sanremo, Italy on July 27th during a ceremony in the rooftop garden of the Sanremo Casino. A cheque for 5,000 Euros ($7,200) was also presented.
Sanremo is situated along the Italian Riviera, and neighbours Monte Carlo, Nice and Cannes.
The 'Libro del Mare' was conceived by renowned Italian literary figure and filmmaker, Folco Quilici, and is presented each year to the best book published in Italy which deals with the sea.
The Town That Forgot How to Breathe has been sold in over thirteen countries, and has been translated into French, German, Italian, Russian, Dutch and other languages.

(Harvey with prize president, Folco Quilici)
________________________________
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Harvey nominated for Libro del Mare

The Town That Forgot How To Breathe (La città che dimenticò di respirare), the international bestseller by Newfoundland author Kenneth J. Harvey,
has been nominated for Italy's Libro del Mare.
http://www.sanremolibromare.it/finalisti.html
The winner receives 5,000 Euros at a ceremony in Sanremo, Italy, on July 27th.
The Libro del Mare is presented each year to the author of the best book about the sea.
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Monday, July 03, 2006
Sunday, July 02, 2006
Reader Mail #1, The Truth is Stranger Than...

Dear Mr. Harvey,
Absolutely amazing!
I just read your novel (The Town That Forgot How To Breathe). It caught my eye because my Dad and generations before him came from Bareneed (I live in Vermont) and we have this strange disability that has plagued every generation of our family (including me). We forget to breathe! It leads to a number of other symptoms that you describe in your book. Did you know about this strange malady when you researched your book or is this a coincidence. Just curious.
--PDD
Friday, June 16, 2006
Monday, June 12, 2006
Friday, May 26, 2006
Saturday, May 20, 2006
Italian Bestseller

Grazie, L'Italia
La città che dimenticò di respirare
(The Town That Forgot How To Breathe)
enters four bestseller lists in Italy
#20-- Il Corriere della Sera (foreign fiction), May 28
#8-- La Stampa (foreign fiction) May 20
#20-- La Feltrinelli bookstore chain list
#14-- Arianna (foreign fiction) May 1 -7
The Town moves up to #13-- on Arianna (foreign fiction) list, May 8 -14 (figures obtained from 692 bookstores)
Wednesday, May 10, 2006
Sunday, April 16, 2006
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Shack

Dark stories about the people and ghosts that haunt rural Newfoundland. From the author of The Town That Forgot How to Breathe, a new collection of Newfoundland stories rich with legends, personal drama, humour and striking characters.
The thirteen, award-winning short stories in Shack feature Harvey's distinctive landscape of Cutland Junction, a place centred in the woods where characters live an inland way of life rarely witnessed in Newfoundland fiction.
Whether dealing with ghosts, loners, tragedy, or various elements of traditional lore, Harvey captures the people of Cutland Junction with passion, wit and care.
"A true talent and superior storyteller." — Books in Canada
His writing is so darkly, massively powerful that it will likely sweep all his potential competitors away with inexorable, tidal force.”
—Margaret Gunning, The Globe and Mail
Monday, February 20, 2006
Skin Hound

Why did William Merriam murder his wife and children? What sets him on a trail of perverse destruction that transgresses what is thinkable in human behaviour?
This is a dark, frightening, controversial book about a man who skins his victims, and is merciless toward himself.
"Harvey is the bone man flaying things bare. Beware, beware, no one has woven a circle around him thrice."— Barry Callaghan, author of Barrelhouse Kings
"Kenneth J. Harvey is both funny and ferocious... He is one of Canada's best, and certainly the country's bravest, writer."— Paul Quarrington
"Kenneth J. Harvey is a literary high priest and a moveable feast; a warlock, a sudden shock; the rhyme, the reason, a master of treason— one of Canada's most volatile and valuable resources."— Lynn Crosbie, author of Dorothy L'Amour
Sunday, February 19, 2006
The Woman in the Closet

"Harvey has been compared to Stephen King and David Cronenberg...He writes with vitriolic despair and pushes the edges of reality with conviction."
- Calgary Herald
"Harvey has crafted a psychodrama worthy of Alfred Hitchcock."
- The Fiddlehead
"Harvey's writing is as sharp as a flensing knife: probing, pointed, and economical. The pace is brisk, breathtaking, disorienting."
- Telegraph Journal
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Friday, February 17, 2006
Thursday, February 16, 2006
The Flesh So Close

In a similar vein to Directions for an Opened Body,
Kenneth J. Harvey's first book of short stories, this collection explores an intriguing range of honest and intense human longings.
Eloquent, heartbreaking and disturbing, this collection brings wounded beauty, bittersweet humour and commonplace tragedy to light. These twenty stories delve into the strange intimacies that characterize love, hate, and desperation, attentively, hungrily, and with eyes open wide.
"A master builder of solid fiction." - Telegraph Journal
"Harvey is obviously a writer of prodigious talent." - Globe and Mail
"Harvey's prose dazzles and compels...A formidable presence on the Canadian literary scene. Sheer virtuosity." - Canadian Book Review Annual



















.jpg)

















































