Steven Galloway

Early life and education

Galloway was born in Vancouver, and raised in Kamloops, British Columbia. He attended the University College of the Cariboo and the University of British Columbia (UBC). He lives with his wife and their four children in New Westminster.

Career

Galloway taught creative writing at the University of British Columbia for many years. He also taught writing at Simon Fraser University. He published his first novel, Finnie Walsh, in 2000, a second novel, Ascension, in 2003, and followed this with a third book, The Cellist of Sarajevo, in 2008.

In 2013 Galloway became a tenured associate professor at UBC, and served as acting chair of the creative writing program. In 2014 he published his fourth novel, The Confabulist. In 2015 he was confirmed in the position of chair.

In November 2015, UBC announced that Galloway was suspended from his position with pay because allegations, which were not specified in the announcement, had been made against him. The Faculty Association of UBC criticized the institution for announcing the suspension, stating it was an invasion of privacy. In June 2016, Galloway was fired from the university after an investigation by Mary Ellen Boyd, a former B.C. Supreme Court justice. In announcing Galloway's termination, Dr. Philip Steenkamp cited "a record of misconduct that resulted in an irreparable breach of trust." The nature of the misconduct was not made public at the time.

In November 2016, a large group of Canadian authors, including Margaret Atwood and Yann Martel, signed an open letter, written by Joseph Boyden, criticizing UBC for carrying out its investigation in secret and denying Galloway the right to due process. The letter caused controversy in the Canadian literary community, with some accusing the signatories of taking Galloway's side over that of his accusers.

In December 2016, Galloway revealed that he had had an affair with a student, for which he apologized, and that there had been several other allegations of misconduct which were dismissed by Justice Boyd.

Finnie Walsh

Galloway's debut novel, Finnie Walsh (2000), was nominated for the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award. It was described as “a work about the love of hockey and the way two boys form a bond that carries them through life's tragedies and trials." Galloway was recognized for successfully portraying a child’s perspective without “giving a child an adult's perspective." The ethnic and economic diversity of the characters had critics describing it as a “truly Canadian book both in content and sensibility. It was noted that “The style of Galloway's early literary influences, Farley Mowat and John Irving, is apparent" in this first novel.

Ascension

His second novel, Ascension (2003), was nominated for the BC Book Prizes' Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize, and has been translated into over fifteen languages. Notably different from his first novel, Ascension takes a look at the events in the life of a 66-year-old Romanian man leading up to his famous tight rope walking between the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center. "He expertly walks a very fine line, spinning the makings of what might have been a gimmicky immigrant tale into a gripping story of one man’s lifelong balancing act."

The Cellist of Sarajevo

Galloway's third novel, The Cellist of Sarajevo (2008), was nominated for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, longlisted for the 2008 Scotiabank Giller Prize and won the 2009 Evergreen Award, the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature and the Borders Original Voices Award. It was heralded as "the work of an expert" by The Guardian, and has become an international bestseller with rights sold in over 30 countries.

The novel is set during the siege of Sarajevo in the mid-1990s and explores the dilemmas of ordinary people caught in the crisis. The title references the true story of Vedran Smailović, a cellist who played Albinoni's Adagio "dressed in evening tails and perching on a fire-scorched chair" every day for 22 days, "always at the same location", to "honour the 22 people killed by a mortar bomb while they queued for bread at 10 in the morning on May 26, 1992". The novel follows the lives of three fictional citizens of Sarajevo as they struggle to survive the war, including one who seeks to protect the cellist: "He has said he will do this for twenty-two days. This is the eighth. People see him. The world has seen him. We cannot allow him to be killed." The novel examines the gentleness found in humanity and the lasting and healing power of art.

Vedran Smailović did not learn of the book until after it had been published. Galloway had been advised to contact Smajlović, who had purposefully embraced a quiet, private life in Warrenpoint, Northern Ireland, but did not do so. When Smailović learned of the publication, he expressed feelings of indignation and dismay, objecting to the use of his story and his personal information without permission or compensation, and pointing out differences between the story and his actual life. However, a meeting between the two took place in 2012, moving a step closer to conflict resolution.

Galloway, who has been described as "honest and talented young man with no intentions to steal", claimed that Smailović's act of playing the cello as a protest was a public act, and that fiction writers were under no obligation to pay those who inspired them, and that it was unreasonable to expect that. Galloway insisted that the cellist in his story, while inspired by the photos and story of Smailović, was imaginary. Galloway sent the cellist a signed copy of the book.

The Confabulist

The Confabulist is a story told some time after 2010 by an elderly man named Martin Strauss who claims to have killed Harry Houdini. Mostly employing flashbacks, the novel alternates between Houdini's point of view and Strauss's point of view to describe the years leading up to their 1926 encounter in Montreal. Several aspects are historically accurate including attempts to have Houdini join espionage circles, and his efforts to champion skepticism over spiritualism. However, it gradually becomes clear that Strauss is an unreliable narrator. The Confabulist was shortlisted for The Rogers Trust Fiction Prize and received favourable reviews from Marcia Kaye of The Toronto Star and Keith Donohue of The Washington Post. Conversely, Jenny Hendrix of the New York Times criticized the narrative as heavy handed.