Sinclair Ross
James Sinclair Ross was born on a homestead in Saskatchewan in 1908. A master of the short story, he was of the first generation of truly Canadian writers. He was also an accomplished musician who played piano and organ in church.
He portrayed life on isolated prairie farms, and he plumbed this setting and atmosphere like no other Canadian writer. In 1933, his short story "No Other Way" won a British Literary competition and was published in Nash's Pall Mall. In 1935, he published "A Field of Wheat." Queens Quarterly continued to publish his stories for the next few years. Such stories as "The Lamp at Noon" and "The Painted Door" have been translated and anthologized widely.
In 1941 Reyal and Hitchcock published the first novel by Sinclair Ross in New York. Although that first edition of As for me and my house did not garner positive reviews, the book became a classic after it was republished by McClelland and Stewart in 1957.
The publisher re-issued in 1989 and 2008 as a New Canadian Library edition. Ross's tale of a failed minister and his despairing wife is set in a small prairie town during the Dirty Thirties has become a standard Canadian Studies text both here and abroad. His work has influenced that of other Canadian writers including Margaret Laurence.
Sinclair Ross had only a Grade 11 education and earned his living working for the Royal Bank. During World War II he served with the Canadian Army in London. Later he lived in Winnipeg and Montreal.
After retiring from the bank in 1968, he lived for some time in Greece and Spain. He came to Vancouver in 1982 and died here in 1996.