Stephen R. Bown

Stephen R. Bown is a Canadian writer of non-fiction books. His works have received several nonfiction awards, including the 2021 National Business Book Award for The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson's Bay Empire.

Career

Bown's first nonfiction book, Sightseers and Scholars: Scientific Travellers in the Golden Age of Natural History, was published in 2002. , he has published twelve non-fiction books.

Bown discussed his career in a 2017 interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. His favorite childhood book series was Cugel's Saga by Jack Vance. Bown stated that Vance's travels to Borneo and Indonesia broadened Vance's worldview, which inspired Bown to "open my mind to understand the decisions and actions of the true historical individuals that I write about."

In a 2018 interview with Read Local BC, Bown discussed his book Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph of the World's Greatest Scientific Expedition. Bown wrote that he wanted to focus on the intimate details of the people involved, rather than "dense historical background."

Personal life

According to CBC Books, Bown is from Canmore, Alberta.

Awards and honors

Bown's 2018 book Island of the Blue Foxes: Disaster and Triumph on Bering’s Great Voyage to Alaska was shortlisted for the RBC Taylor Prize. It was longlisted for British Columbia's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.

In 2021, Stephen Bown and Mark Carney shared the National Business Book Award. Bown received the award for his book The Company: The Rise and Fall of the Hudson’s Bay Empire. It was the first time in the award's history that two books were named winners.

In 2024, Bown received the Governor General's History Award for Popular Media, administered by Canada's National History Society.