news | Friday July 12, 2013

Fred Wah Appointed to the Order of Canada

We are sincerely pleased to learn that Fred Wah, venerated Canadian poet and current Poet Laureate of Canada, has been appointed an officer the Order of Canada. The appointment was announced on June 28, 2013.

The Order of Canada, one of our country’s highest civilian honours, was established in 1967, during Canada’s centennial year, to recognize a lifetime of outstanding achievement, dedication to community and service to the nation. Over the last 46 years, more than 6,000 people from all sectors of society have been invested into the Order.

Just prior to the appointment, Wah had called attention to the honourable but honorary and therefore somewhat problematic nature of the role of poet laureate.

Of his seventeen books of poetry, is a door received the B.C. Book Prize, Waiting For Saskatchewan received the Governor-General’s Award, and So Far was awarded the Stephanson Award for Poetry. Diamond Grill, a biofiction about hybridity and growing up in a small-town Chinese-Canadian café, won the Howard O’Hagan Award for Short Fiction, and his collection of critical writing, Faking It: Poetics and Hybridity, received the Gabrielle Roy Prize.

To learn more about his work, visit The Fred Wah Digital Archive.