Will
Aitken
Will Aitken has written three novels — Realia, A Visit Home, Terre Haute — and the nonfiction book Death in Venice: A Queer Film Classic. His arts journalism and film criticism has appeared in a variety of media outlets, including the CBC, BBC, NPR, The Globe and Mail, Maclean’s, and The Paris Review. He lives in Montreal where he previously taught film studies at Dawson College.
Award History
2018 Finalist
Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfictionfor Antigone Undone: Juliette Binoche, Anne Carson, Ivo Van Hove, and the Art of Resistance
Jury Citation
"For author Will Aitken, the classics are very much alive. His Antigone Undone is about what happens to us when supposedly dusty works of art don’t just resonate but skewer us straight through. At first glance, this book is an examination of Antigone’s lasting relevance — and we do learn about the play’s meaning, its fraught history — but Aitken is really giving us a personal testament, not a lesson: a testament to the rough, mysterious power of art. By the end of his brief, brilliant book, Aitken himself is nearly undone — and Antigone emerges as a 2,500-year-old juggernaut more mysterious and magnetic than before."
— 2018 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction Jury (Michael Harris, Donna Bailey Nurse, and Joel Yanofsky)
