Donald Winkler

Donald Winkler (born 1940) is a Canadian documentary filmmaker and French-to-English literary translator. He lives in Montreal with his wife Sheila Fischman.

Life and career

Early life Winkler was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba and grew up loving theatre. He was introduced to French through his mother who studied the language in Romania before coming to Canada when she was fifteen years old.

In 1993, his documentary film Breaking a Leg: Robert Lepage and the Echo Project was a Genie Award nominee for Best Short Documentary at the 14th Genie Awards.

Translation Winkler first began translating Quebec literature in the late 1980s. He is a member of the Literary Translators' Association of Canada. Carmine Starnino describes Winkler as "one of [Canada's] most gifted and highly decorated practitioners." Winkler describes the process of translation as "a constant quest for perfect pitch" and a "sophisticated word game". Sheila Fischman, his spouse, is also an award-winning translator. He describes her as the "doyenne of Canadian literary translation".

Donald Winkler was nominated for the Giller Prize twice: in 2007, for A Secret Between Us by Daniel Poliquin, and in 2015, for Arvida by Samuel Archibald In addition, he won the Quebec Writers' Federation's Cole Foundation Translation Prize for his translation of The Major Verbs by Pierre Nepveu, Winkler's translation of Arvida by Samuel Archibald was also short-listed for the 2016 Best Translated Book Awards.

List of Translations