André Alexis is a Canadian writer of novels, short stories, plays, and opera librettos. Born in 1957 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, he grew up in Canada and is associated with Toronto. His debut novel, Childhood, established him as a significant voice in Canadian fiction: it received the Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Trillium Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Giller Prize.
Alexis’s fiction often engages philosophical questions through formally distinct narratives. Fifteen Dogs: An Apologue, a novel in which dogs are granted human consciousness, won both the 2015 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. It forms part of his five-book Quincunx sequence, which includes Pastoral and Days by Moonlight. Alongside his prose, Alexis has written librettos for operas by James Rolfe and has worked in Canadian radio and literary criticism.
His later recognition includes the 2017 Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction, a 2026 Guggenheim Fellowship, and The Story Prize for the 2025 story collection Other Worlds. These honours reflect a career spanning novels, short fiction, theatre, music, and literary broadcasting.
This profile is awaiting source review; collected books are already linked below.
