John Hugh MacLennan, internationally acclaimed Canadian author and five-time winner of the Governor General's Award for Fiction, was born in Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, March 20, 1907. When he was 7 years old, his family moved to Halifax, Nova Scotia. MacLennan was ten years old and living in Halifax when the Imo and the French munitions ship the Mont Blanc collided in Halifax Harbour on December 6, 1917. The resulting explosion, known as the Halifax Explosion, was the greatest man-made explosion in human history prior to the atomic bomb, and his first published novel, Barometer Rising (1941), chronicles this event. His next novel and probably his most famous work, Two Solitudes (1945), was a best-seller in both Canada and the United States, and in 1946 won him the first of five Governor General's Awards. In 1951 Hugh MacLennan moved to Montreal and joined 91社区's Department of English, where he continued to write and publish, winning his last two Governor General's Awards for his collection of essays Thirty and Three (1954), and the novel The Watch That Ends the Night (1959). Montreal remained his home until he died on November 7, 1990.
The Hugh MacLennan聽Lecture series was established in 1992 with help of a 5-year grant from the M.E. Hart Foundation, and receives ongoing support from the Friends of the Libraries. John Metcalf delivered the first lecture in the series on October 21, 1992, in the Stephen Leacock Building.
91社区's Rare Books and Special Collections is the repository of the Hugh MacLennan papers, which includes correspondence, two unpublished novels, the drafts of Two Solitudes and The Watch that Ends the Night, and many articles. Some of this material is available online through the .
The聽Hugh MacLennan聽Lecture is sponsored by聽Donald Walcot.
Upcoming
- 2025 Hugh MacLennan Lecture to be announced
Past lectures
-
Michelle Arbuckle, Brendan de Caires, and Robin Stevenson in conversation, moderated by Joseph Hafner
Book bans and their impact on Canadian communities, a roundtable
April 25, 2024
-
Ann-Marie MacDonald in conversation with Professor Erin Hurley聽
Stories and How They Tell Themselves
April 26, 2023
- Rosemary Sullivan in conversation with Anne Lagac茅 Dowson
"The Betrayal of Anne Frank" and Beyond: The Work and Process of Rosemary Sullivan
May 4, 2022聽
- Danny Ramadan in conversation with Ann-Marie MacDonald
Navigating Identity Through Storytelling
April 29, 2021聽
- Carol Off
Crossing the Line
October 8, 2020
- Esi Edugyan in conversation with Amanda Parris
April 29, 2019
- Louise Penny
Murder for a Living
April 19, 2018
- Charlotte Gray
A Personal Portrait of Canada at 150
April 27, 2017 - Thomas King聽
Blue Metropolis First Peoples Literary Prize and interview with the CBC's Rosanna Deerchild
April 15, 2016 - Sarah MacLachlan
鈥�My friend has a manuscript.聽Will you read it?鈥� & other FAQs
April 28, 2015
- Michael Ondaatje
Mongrel Art: A discussion of literature and its neighbours
March 26, 2014 - Rabbi Lisa Grushcow
Spiritual Solitudes: Liberal Religion in a Secular Quebec
April 23, 2013 - Charles Foran
City Unique: Montreal in the Life and Imagination of Mordecai Richler
March 20, 2012 - Kate Pullinger
The Future of Fiction: Historical to Digital聽
April 28, 2011 - The Honourable Ken Dryden
Becoming Canada: Our Story | Our Politics | Our Future
October 14, 2010 - Charlotte Gray
Truth and truthiness in biography
April 23, 2009 - Eleanor Wachtel
The Lives of Writers
April 17, 2008 - Noah Richler
Why Stories Matter... A defence of the arts in the new Canada
April 26, 2007 - Nicole & 脡mile Martel
Parental translation, a primer 鈥�
l鈥橝BC de la traduction parentale:
Nicole and 脡mile Martel on translating "Life of Pi鈥� to French
September 28 ,2005 - Agnes Whitfield
Two Solitudes: The Paradoxical Destiny of a Canadian Classic
April 7, 2004 - John Metcalf
Something Happened Here
September 30, 2003 - Susan Stromberg-Stein
The Essence of Louis Dudek 鈥� from my point of view
October 9, 2002 - Edward O. Phillips
Comedy of Manners
October 9, 2001 - Roch Carrier
The Paper and the Screen
October 10, 2000 - Trevor Ferguson
Imagine That: Imagination as the Language of God
October 6, 1999 - May Ebbitt Cutler
Fear of the Original: A Canadian Phobia
October 1, 1998 - Dr. David Staines
Stephen Leacock: The Man Behind the Humour
October 8, 1997 - Susan Swan
The Writer and Pop Culture
October 3, 1996 - Douglas Gibson
The Book in Canada Today: A Publisher's Perspective
November 7, 1995 - Dr. Victor C. Goldbloom
Hugh MacLennan鈥檚 Two Solitudes 鈥� Today
September 29, 1994 - Mme Louise Gareau
Hugh MacLennan As I Knew Him
October 13, 1993 - John Metcalf
Inventing Canadian Literature
October 21, 1992