The meteoric rise of Vancouver-born Eliza Robertson began in 2013 when she accepted the Commonwealth Short Story Prize from John le Carre at the Hay Festival in Wales for a story that had appeared in Granta. The New York Times subsequently dubbed her first story collection, Wallflowers (Hamish Hamilton, 2014), as "captivating" and she became a finalist for the CBC Short Story Prize and Journey Prize. Even though she was a novice author, she was invited to numerous literary festivals. So the pump is well primed for Demi-Gods (Hamish Hamilton/ Bloomsbury $29.95), a debut novel in which we follow the relationship between a step-sister and a menacing step-brother into an adult landscape of sexually charged malevolence, set partially on Saltspring Island during the 1950s and '60s. Eliza Robertson became fascinated with the era after looking over her family archives, as she confided in an excellent interview with Shelagh Rogers on CBC's The Next Chapter. Robertson later moved to Montreal.

Other awards include the Elizabeth Jolley Prize, 2019 3Macs carte blanche Prize.

BOOKS:

Wallflowers (Hamish Hamilton, 2014) $22 978-0-14-319140-7

Demi-Gods (Hamish Hamilton, 2017) $29.95 978-0670068272

Spur, a Wolf's Story (Greystone, 2019) $22.95 9781771643412. Ages 6 - 8.

[BCBW 2022]