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David Adams Richards, Canada Reads author

Broadcast Date: Nov. 3, 2000

Last night, at the 2000 Giller Awards, David Adams Richards was surprised by a win shared with fellow author Michael Ondaatje. In this interview with Laurie Brown, Richards says that he particularly treasures the win because his book was judged worthy by Alistair MacLeod.  Richards tells Brown about his novel Mercy Among the Children, his determination not to exploit cynicism but "celebrate the human" and the novel's themes of tragedy, persecution and his own sense of being an outsider.

David Adams Richards, Canada Reads author

• As the author of the Governor General's Award-winning book Lines on the Water and of the Governor General's Award-winning novel Nights Below Station Street, Richards is one of few authors to win in both the fiction and non-fiction categories.

• Richards is from the Miramichi region of New Brunswick, and it is the setting for his novels.  He resides in Toronto, but according to an interview he gave to Linda Richards of January Magazine in 2006, he has been made an honourary Miramichi resident so he can get a license to fish the river.

• Richards has received many awards for his published work, but he has also won Geminis for his screenplay Small Gifts and for his adaptation of his novel For Those Who Hunt the Wounded Down.  The former also won him the New York International Film Festival award for Best Scriptwriter in 1996.

David Adams Richards, Canada Reads author

Medium: Television

Program: The National

Broadcast Date: Nov. 3, 2000

Guest(s): David Adams Richards

Anchor: Alison Smith
Interviewer: Laurie Brown

Duration: 5:59

Last updated:
Nov. 25, 2008