Monkey Beach was praised nationally and internationally as the work of a powerful and original new literary voice it was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and the Governor General’s Literary Award, and won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize.Įden Robinson returned to the characters and urban terrain of her novella “Contact Sports,” from Traplines, in her 2006 novel Blood Sports. The book is both a mystery and a spiritual journey, combining contemporary realism with Haisla mysticism ( s ee Indigenous Peoples: Religion and Spirituality). The novel follows a teenage girl’s search for answers to and understanding of her younger brother’s disappearance at sea. Monkey Beach (2000), Robinson’s first novel, is set in Kitamaat. The collection won Britain’s Winifred Holtby Memorial Prize for the best regional work by a Commonwealth writer. Robinson’s young narrators recount haunting tales of their disturbing relationships with sociopaths and psychopaths.

Writing CareerĮden Robinson’s first book, Traplines (1996), is a collection of three short stories and a novella (a short novel). Encouraged by the early success of “Traplines,” she enrolled - and eventually graduated from - the prestigious master’s program in creative writing at the University of British Columbia. She worked a number of odds jobs - janitor, napkin ironer, dry cleaner, mailroom clerk - that allowed her to dedicate time to her literary craft. After graduating in 1992, Robinson moved to Vancouver with ambitions to become a writer. Her first published story, “Traplines” (1991), was published in the literary magazine Prism International while she was in her last year of university. Robinson earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Victoria. The two raised their family, including Robinson and her older brother and younger sister (who went on to become a television news anchor at the CBC), in Haisla. Her mother, who is Heiltsuk, met her father, a Haisla man, at a fishing stop in Bella Bella, the traditional home of the Heiltsuk First Nation. Early Life and EducationĮden Robinson was born in Kitimat General Hospital and raised in Kitamaat Village, home to members of the Haisla Nation. Eden Robinson's book, Son of a Trickster (2017) at a bookstore.

Monkey Beach by Eden Robinson