MacLennan, John Hugh

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: See full biography at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_MacLennan
Biography:
- John Hugh MacLennan CC CQ FRSL FRSC (March 20, 1907 – November 9, 1990) was a Canadian writer and professor of English at McGill University. He won five Governor General’s Awards and a Royal Bank Award.
- MacLennan was born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, on March 20, 1907. His parents were Samuel MacLennan, a colliery physician, and Katherine MacQuarrie; Hugh also had an older sister named Frances. Samuel was a stern Calvinist, while Katherine was creative, warm and dreamy, and both parents would be large influences on Hugh’s character. In 1913, the family spent several months in London while Samuel took on further study to become a medical specialist. On returning to Canada, they briefly lived in Sydney, Nova Scotia, before settling in Halifax.In December 1917, young Hugh experienced the Halifax Explosion, which he would later write about in his first published novel, Barometer Rising.
- His most famous novel, Two Solitudes, a literary allegory for the tensions between English and French Canada, followed in 1945. That year, he left Lower Canada College. Two Solitudes won MacLennan his first Governor General’s Award for Fiction. In 1948, MacLennan published The Precipice, which again won the Governor General’s Award. The following year, he published a collection of essays, Cross Country, which won the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction.
- In 1951, MacLennan returned to teaching, accepting a position at McGill University. In 1952, he was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and awarded the society’s Lorne Pierce Medal. In 1954, he published another essay collection, Thirty and Three, which again won the Governor General’s Award for Non-Fiction. In 1956, he was made a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
- One of MacLennan’s students at McGill was Marian Engel, who became a noted Canadian novelist in the 1970s. He served as her master’s supervisor in c. 1958. Another notable student was Leonard Cohen, the popular songwriter, poet and novelist.
- In 1967 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada. In 1985 he was made a Knight of the National Order of Quebec.
- The Canadian band The Tragically Hip, on their album Fully Completely, have a song called “Courage (for Hugh MacLennan)”. A passage from The Watch That Ends the Night is adapted for use in the song.
Second Great Grandson of United Empire Loyalist: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=9260
Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/108261086/hugh-maclennan