Alberta writer Robert Kroetsch dies at 83

Booksellers NZ was saddened to learn the news that Laura Kroetsch's father, Canadian novelist and poet Robert Kroetsch has died in a car accident near Drumheller, Alta. He was 83.

Kroetsch died Tuesday while returning to his home in Leduc, Alta., from the Artspeak Festival in Canmore, according his publisher University of Alberta Press.

One of Kroetsch's best-known novels is The Studhorse Man, a tall tale about a Western studhorse man who creates mayhem in his quest to breed his rare blue stallion. It won the Governor General's Literary Award for fiction in 1969.

He also wrote The Man from The Creeks, a ribald retelling of Robert Service's poem, The Shooting of Dan McGrew, set against the backdrop of the Klondike Gold Rush. First published in 1998, it was re-released in 2008.

He is considered a post-modern writer, experimenting with magic realism in What the Crow Said and parodying the myths of the founding of the West in many of his books, often to comic effect.

Kroetsch wrote seven non-fiction works, nine books of fiction and 14 poetry collections, including Seed Catalogue and The Hornbooks of Rita K (2001), a nominee for the Governor General's Literary Award.

He is also considered a mentor, editor and teacher to many students and writers, among them Aritha VanHerk, Rudy Wiebe and Myrna Kostash.

We understand that Laura is travelling home this week and will be away for a month. Our thoughts, and we are sure yours too, go with her.