Name Elisabeth Harvor Role Novelist | Education Concordia University | |
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Nominations Governor General's Award for English-language fiction Books All Times Have Been Modern, Excessive joy injures the heart, Fortress of chairs, The long cold green evenings, An Open Door in the Landscape | ||
Erica Elisabeth Arendt Harvor (née Deichmann) is a Canadian novelist and poet who lives in Ottawa, Ontario. She was born in Saint John, New Brunswick, the daughter of studio potters Kjeld and Erica Deichmann. Harvor grew up in Saint John and on the Kingston Peninsula. She married architect Stig Harvor in 1957. The couple had two sons before they divorced in 1977. Harvor enrolled at Concordia University in 1983, receiving an M.A. in creative writing in 1986. She has also won many awards for her fiction and poetry. Harvor's short story collection Let Me Be the One was a finalist for the 1996 Governor General's Literary Award. Fortress of Chairs, her first book of poems, won the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for best first book of poetry written by a Canadian writer in 1992. Her second poetry book, The Long Cold Green Evenings of Spring, was a finalist for the Lowther Award in 1997, and her first novel, Excessive Joy Injures the Heart, was chosen one of the ten best books of the year by The Toronto Star in 2000. Also in 2000 Harvor won the Alden Nowlan Award, in 2003 the Marian Engel Award, and in 2004 the Malahat Novella Prize for "Across Some Dark Avenue of Plot He Carried Her Body."