Russell Smith

Russell Smith – Life, Career, and Writings

Discover the life and works of Russell Smith (born August 2, 1963), a Canadian novelist, short-story writer, nonfiction author, and columnist known for his sharp, urbane voice. Explore his biography, books, style, legacy, and notable observations.

Introduction

Russell Claude Smith (born August 2, 1963) is a Canadian writer whose fiction, essays, and journalism have held a steady place in Canada’s literary and cultural scene. Though born in South Africa, he grew up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and his writing often probes city life, art, style, cultural ambition, and the uneasy intersections of authenticity and affectation. He is known for combining satire, moral edge, sharp energy, and cultural commentary.

Smith’s work crosses genres—novels, short stories, memoir, style writing, and criticism—all enriched by his linguistic play, cultural wit, and willingness to bite. He is also a longtime columnist for The Globe and Mail, a teacher, and an editor.

Early Life and Education

Russell Smith was born in Johannesburg, South Africa on 2 August 1963.

In Halifax, he attended Halifax Grammar School and Queen Elizabeth High School. French literature, including time at Queen’s University in Canada, the University of Poitiers, and Université Paris III (Sorbonne Nouvelle) in France. Master’s degree in French from Queen’s.

These early linguistic and cultural experiences—especially engagement with French literature—inform much of his sensibility: the tension between surface and depth, style and substance, linguistic play and cultural critique.

Career and Works

Fiction, Short Fiction & Novels

Smith’s fiction has often been urban, satirical, and attuned to the tensions of modern life.

• How Insensitive (1994) was his debut novel. It was nominated for the Governor General’s Award (one of Canada’s top literary prizes) as well as the Trillium and First Novel awards.

• Noise (1998) followed—another incisive, often sharp-eyed take on the excesses, frustrations, and absurdities of city life and ambition.

• In 1999, he published Young Men, a collection of short stories. The opening story, “Party Going”, won a National Magazine Award for fiction (1997).

• He also wrote The Princess and the Whiskheads (2002), a short illustrated fantasy/fable with engravings by Wesley Bates.

• Under the pseudonym Diane Savage, he published Diana: A Diary in the Second Person (2003), later republished under his own name with a new introduction.

• Muriella Pent (2004) is a more ambitious novel, dealing with themes of identity, culture, race, and artistic ambition in Canadian society. It was shortlisted for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.

• Girl Crazy (2010) is another novel in his oeuvre.

• Confidence: Stories (2015) is a later short story collection, which was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize.

Beyond fiction, Smith has also written nonfiction and work in style and cultural commentary:

• Men’s Style: The Thinking Man’s Guide to Dress (2005) is a guide and reflection on men’s fashion, aesthetics, and social meanings.

• His memoir Blindsided: How Twenty Years of Writing About Booze, Drugs and Sex Ended in the Blink of an Eye is available as an e-book.

• He has also edited and compiled works, such as Best Canadian Stories 2018.

Smith’s fiction often pushes against the comfortable tropes of Canadian literature (nature, small towns, pastoral themes) and instead centers city life, ambition, style, the literary world itself, and the hypocrisies of cultural self-image.

Journalism, Columnism, and Criticism

Smith is well known for his work as a cultural commentator and columnist:

• For many years (1999–2020), he wrote a weekly arts column for The Globe and Mail, one of Canada's major national newspapers.

• His essays, reviews, and journalism have appeared in publications such as The New York Review of Books, Details, The Walrus, Toronto Life, Flare, Now, EnRoute, among others.

• In 2018, he became an acquiring editor for Dundurn Press.

Smith’s journalistic voice is sharp, often provocative, attuned to style, culture, and the undercurrents behind public image. He writes about literature, media, fashion, irony, and the incongruities of cultural life in Canada and beyond.

He also served as a teacher: he taught in the MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of Guelph (2009 to 2017).

Style, Themes & Literary Traits

Russell Smith’s writing bears distinctive traits and recurring concerns:

• Urban sensibility: He is drawn to modern city life rather than pastoral or rural settings; his characters often inhabit Toronto or Canadian urban spaces.

• Satire and social critique: He critiques cultural pretension, art world affectations, the vanity of ambition, and the pressures of style and image.

• Metatextual awareness: His fiction sometimes reflects on the nature of writing, the literary world, and the tension between public persona and inner life.

• Language & register: He is attentive to style, slang, register, dialogue, and the interplay of high culture and pop culture.

• Cultural outsider and insider: As someone born abroad but growing up in Canada, and with deep exposure to French literature and cosmopolitan contexts, he often plays with ideas of belonging, cosmopolitan tension, and cultural identity.

Legacy and Influence

Smith holds a special place among contemporary Canadian writers:

1. Voice of the urban literati
   He offers a counterbalance to the dominant narrative of Canadian literature (which often emphasizes nature, rural settings, and small communities). His urban, media-savvy, style-conscious work resonates with readers interested in cosmopolitan Canada.

2. Bridging journalism and fiction
   His dual role as novelist and columnist has let him engage with culture both as creator and critic, giving him a vantage point few writers occupy.

3. Teaching & mentorship
   Through his role at the University of Guelph’s MFA program and his editorial work at Dundurn, he influences the next generations of Canadian writers.

4. Cultural influence
   His commentary on culture, fashion, media, and the writing life contributes to discourse beyond literature, especially in Canada’s media and arts conversations.

5. Recognition & awards
   His works have been nominated for major Canadian literary prizes (Governor General’s Award, Writers’ Trust, Giller longlist) and earned magazine awards for fiction.

Memorable Quotes & Observations

Here are a few attributed or representative lines and commentary by or about Russell Smith:

• From Noise (via Goodreads):

  “They woke together and fell apart.”

• In a Goodreads community comment quoting his work:

  “It used to be that you could get a lot of recognition by writing about Canada, as long as it was about small towns and nature ... I had to study them in school.”

• On Confidence, the jury for the Writers’ Trust Engel Findley Award praised:

  “Confidence is a riveting collection of short stories that explore a number of uncomfortable truths. Russell Smith’s bold take on contemporary life — sex, lies, violence, the search for tenderness, and the complexity of deceit — marries a remarkably astute understanding of the life of the desperately hip and urbane with the craft of literary writing.”

While not many pithy aphorisms are widely recorded, Smith’s sensibility is embedded in the sharp lines, ironic wit, and cultural observations of his fiction and columns.

Lessons from Russell Smith

• Push against the literary norm: By focusing on contemporary urban culture, style, media, and art scene tensions, he shows that Canadian literature can expand beyond rustic and nature-bound tropes.

• Voice matters: His consistent, recognizable voice—wry, sharp, skeptical—has been a foundation of his longevity.

• Be both creator and critic: Wearing both hats allowed him to engage culture from inside and outside, opening reflexivity in his work.

• Stay engaged with public culture: His columns, essays, and public commentary keep his fiction alive in contemporary discourse.

• Mentorship & institutional influence: Beyond writing, his role as teacher and editor helps shape the future of Canadian literary production.

Conclusion

Russell Smith is a multifaceted figure in Canadian letters: novelist, short-story writer, columnist, style commentator, teacher, and editor. His writing is not quiet or incremental; it is edgy, reflexive, and keen to expose the contradictions and affectations of modern life. He challenges assumptions about Canadian identity, literature, and taste, and remains a provocative voice in the country’s cultural debate.