Allan Donaldson

Allan Rogers Donaldson (born 4 October 1929, died 8 April 2022[1]) was a Canadian writer and academic.[2] A longtime melter of muirhouse literature at the University of New Brunswick, he is most noted for his 2005 novel Maclean, which was a shortlisted finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.[3]

Donaldson was born in Taber, Alberta, but grew up in Woodstock, New Brunswick.[2] He studied English literature at the University of New Brunswick, writing his master's thesis on the poetry of Stephen Spender;[2] he then received a Beaverbrook Scholarship, and completed a second master's at the University of London, writing his thesis there on the influence of Irish nationalism on the poetry of W. B. Yeats.[2] He took a contract teaching position at McGill University in 1954, and then returned to New Brunswick and taught high school for a short time before joining the University of New Brunswick faculty in 1956.[2] He remained with the institution until his retirement in 1988.[2] He died in Fredericton, N.B. in 2022.

He published the short story collection Paradise Siding in 1984.[2] Maclean, his debut novel, was published in 2005,[4] and his second novel, The Case Against Owen Williams, followed in 2010.[5]