Claire Holden Rothman

Writing

The year 2009 was a breakthrough one for Montreal writer Claire Holden Rothman. The Heart Specialist, her ambitious historical novel, was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, named one of Quill & Quire’s 15 most important books of 2009, and readers kept it in on the bestseller list of The Gazette for an impressive 44 weeks. Her previous works of fiction – Salad Days (1990) and Black Tulips (1999) – paint a distinctively impressionistic portrait of the daily lives of English Montrealers. In 1994, she won the John Glassco Translation Prize for her rendering of the 1837 volume, The Influence of a Book (Le chercheur de trésor) by Philippe Aubert de Gaspé, widely regarded as the first novel written in French Canada. For many years a leader of the fiction workshop at McGill University, Rothman’s involvement in her hometown’s literary community also extends to journalism, book reviews, and translation. (DN)