Wayson Choy (崔維新 Pinyin: Cuī Wéixīn; Jyutping: Ceoi1 Wai4-san1) (April 20, 1939 – April 28, 2019) was a Canadian novelist. Publishing two novels and two memoirs in his lifetime, he is considered one of the most important pioneers of Asian Canadian literature in Canada, and as an important figure in LGBT literature as one of Canada's first openly gay writers of colour to achieve widespread mainstream success.
Personal life and education
Choy, whose birth name was Choy Way Sun, was born in Vancouver on April 20, 1939, A Chinese Canadian, he spent his childhood in the city's Chinatown.
He graduated from Gladstone Secondary School and went on to attend the University of British Columbia, where he studied creative writing.
In 2001, Choy suffered an asthma attack, which led to him being placed in a medically induced coma for 11 days during which he also suffered cardiac arrest. He remained in hospital for four months to recuperate and recover with physiotherapy.
In 2010, Wilfrid Laurier University presented Choy with an honorary Doctorate of Literature. Choy moved to Toronto in 1962, where he taught English at Burnhamthorpe Collegiate (1966–1967), then at Humber College from 1967 to 2004.
Choy published his first novel, The Jade Peony in 1995. It won the Trillium Book Award and the City of Vancouver Book Award.
His first memoir, Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood, was published in 1999. It won the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction, and was shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction at the 1999 Governor General's Awards.
His second novel, All That Matters, was published in 2004 and was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
In 2009, Choy published Not Yet: A Memoir of Living and Almost Dying, his second and final memoir about dealing with the life-threatening health challenges.
In 2015, he received the George Woodcock Award, the lifetime achievement award for writers from British Columbia presented by the Writers' Trust of Canada and the Vancouver Public Library.
Three recently published monographs have featured chapters on Choy's publications up to Not Yet; these are: John Z. Ming Chen's The Influence of Daoism on Asian-Canadian Writers (Mellen, 2008), John Z. Ming Chen and Wei Li's A Study of Canadian Social Realist Literature: Neo-Marxist, Confucian, and Daoist Approaches (Inner Mongolia University Press, 2011), John Z. Ming Chen and Yuhua Ji's Canadian-Daoist Poetics, Ethics, and Aesthetics (Springer, 2015).
Awards and honours
Choy was named a Member of the Order of Canada in 2005.
In 1999, The Globe and Mail named Paper Shadows among the year's noteworthy books.
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|1996
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|City of Vancouver Book Award
|Winner
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|1999
|Paper Shadows
|Governor General's Award for English-language non-fiction
|Shortlist
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|2004
|All That Matters
|Scotiabank Giller Prize
|Shortlist
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|2005
|All That Matters
|City of Vancouver Book Award
|Finalist
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