“A debunker of stereotypes and a seeker of the big picture, [Gibb] isn’t satisfied with merely creating convincing characters and a bold plot. She educates and enlightens the reader.” —Montreal Gazette
“Years ago I had a dream,” says Camilla Gibb. “To write fiction. Someone—an anonymous benefactor—gave me a gift of $6,000 to quit my job and give it a try.” Seldom does an investment pay off so magnificently. Since then, Camilla has written four internationally acclaimed novels—Mouthing the Words, The Petty Details of So-and-so’s Life, Sweetness in the Belly and The Beauty of Humanity Movement—as well as the bestselling memoir This is Happy. Her work has won a Trillium Award, a City of Toronto Book Award, a CBC Canadian Literary Award, and has been shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize and Scotiabank Giller Prize.
In her first new novel in ten years, The Relatives, the characters of Lila, Tess and Emily, and their anonymous donor who being held in captivity in Somalia grapple with questions of creation, the meaning of family, and our responsibilities to each other in a rapidly shifting world. The Toronto Star states that ” The Relatives proves she’s one of Canada’s best storytellers […] Taut, suspenseful prose urges us ever forward, probing the deeper connections among her beautifully flawed family of characters […] Taking us into the bright and the dark, worlds known and unknown, Gibb’s multi-layered tale solves these mysteries with the immense satisfaction that only the best storytellers can deliver.”
She has a Ph.D. from Oxford University and is an adjunct faculty member of the graduate creative writing programs at the University of Toronto and the University of Guelph.
She lives in Toronto.
Website: https://www.camillagibb.com/
Book: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/221273/the-relatives-by-camilla-gibb/9780385678094
Appearing in:
12. The Robertson Davies Lecture
Past Festival Appearances
