Rawi Hage

Rawi Hage
Hage at the 2009 Brooklyn Book Festival
Born	Beirut, Lebanon
Occupation	Journalist, novelist
Nationality	Canadian
Notable works	De Niro's Game, Cockroach

Rawi Hage (born 1964) is a Canadian writer and photographer.

Early life and education

Born in Beirut, Hage grew up in Lebanon and Cyprus. He moved to New York City in 1984. In 1991, he relocated to Montreal, where he studied Photography at Dawson College and Fine Arts at Concordia University. He subsequently began exhibiting as a photographer, and has had works acquired by the Canadian Museum of Civilization in Canada's capital. He holds an MFA from the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). In addition to his work as a writer and a visual artist, Hage spent time as a cab driver in Montreal.

Writing

Hage has published journalism and fiction in several Canadian and American magazines, and in the PEN America Journal. His debut novel, De Niro's Game (2006), won the 2008 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and was shortlisted for the 2006 Scotiabank Giller Prize and the 2006 Governor General's Award for English fiction. Commenting on their selection, the IMPAC judges remarked that "its originality, its power, its lyricism, as well as its humane appeal all mark De Niro’s Game as the work of a major literary talent and make Rawi Hage a truly deserving winner." De Niro's Game was also awarded two Quebec awards, the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction and the McAuslan First Book Prize

His second novel, Cockroach, was published in 2008 and was also shortlisted for the Giller Prize, the Governor General's Award and the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. He was the winner of the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction in 2008 and 2012 for his books Cockroach and Carnival, respectively.

In August 2013, he was named Vancouver Public Library's ninth writer in residence.

Bibliography

• De Niro's Game (2006)
• Cockroach (2008)
• Carnival (2012)