Rabindranath Maharaj

Who is Rabindranath Maharaj?

Rabindranath Maharaj is a Canadian novelist, short story writer, and a founding editor of the Canadian literary journal Lichen. His novel The Amazing Absorbing Boy won the 2010 Trillium Book Award and the 2011 Toronto Book Award, and several of his books have been shortlisted for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, and the Chapters/Books in Canada First Novel Award.

He was raised in George Village, Tableland in South Trinidad. After receiving a B.A. in English, an M.A. in English and History, and Diploma of Education from the University of the West Indies, Saint Augustine, he worked as a teacher and, briefly, as a columnist for the Trinidad Guardian.

In the early 1990s, Maharaj immigrated to Canada, and in 1993, he completed a second M.A. at the University of New Brunswick. In 1994 he moved to the town of Ajax, Ontario, where he taught high school for a number of years. In 1998, Maharaj, along with three other Durham Region writers - Ruth E. Walker, Gwynn Scheltema, and Lucy Brennan - founded and coedited Lichen Literary Journal, which was launched in May 1999. He remained on the editorial board for another three years.