Strange Fugitive

Morley Callaghan 1903-1990

Morley Callaghan was born on February 22, 1903 in Toronto, Canada. A master of the short story and author of several excellent novels, Callaghan has long been a writer of international reputation. He educated at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto, and Osgoode Hall Law school. Working as a reporter for the Toronto Daily Star, he met Ernest Hemingway who was also working with the newspaper. In 1929, the same year as his first volume of short stories, Native Argosy, was published, Callaghan traveled to Paris, where he became reacquainted with Hemingway and met James Joyce and F. Scott Fitzgerald. That Summer in Paris (1963) contains Callaghan's memoirs of his experiences with these famous expatriates.

Morley Callaghan is renowned for the clarity and economy of his prose. While Callaghan's work appears forthright and uncomplicated, each of the novels focuses on a character who faces a crisis. How this turning point is handled determines the direction the character's life will take. Callaghan, who was a devout Catholic, saw himself as a moralist as well as one who gave "shape and form to human experience." Callaghan was awarded the Royal Society of Canada's Lorne Pierce Medal in 1960. In 1982 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Callaghan's works include The Loved and the Lost (which won the Governor General's Award in 1951), The Many Colored robe, A Time for Judas, Our Lady of the Snows, and A Wild Old man Down the Road.

He died at the age of 87 and was interred at Mount Hope Catholic Cemetery in Ontario. 030