Photo: Rob Allen

John Ralston Saul September 28, 1994

John Ralston Saul, novelist, essayist and historian, was born in Ottawa and lives in Toronto. Educated in Canada, England and France, he specialized in history and politics. Saul's passion for travel and adventure has inspired his fiction. He has travelled with guerrillas in North Africa and Shan rebel warlords in Burma, and has journeyed through the jungles of Thailand and the Northwest Territories of Canada. Saul's fictional characters share similar adventures: writer Charles Stone unveils political conspiracy in France, oil executive Martin Laing joins the arms trade in the Middle East, museum curator James Spenser smuggles precious statues of Buddha out of Burma, and journalist John Field uncovers the secrets to his colleagues' murders in Bangkok. Far from being mere background, location is vital to his novels. The Paradise Eater, praised for its authentic depiction of Bangkok, received the Premio Letterario Citta di Modena award in 1990.

In Saul's non-fiction, he "lays aside the mask of fiction to speak in his own voice". 1 He talks of action, responsibility and not accepting the answers to which we have become accustomed. Not surprisingly, Saul is involved in the work of many organizations, including the international writers' human rights organization PEN and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. He regularly contributes to newspapers such as The Spectator (London), The Globe and Mail (Toronto), Le Monde (Paris) and The New York Times (New York).

As a novelist and essayist, Saul has an international following. Translation of his works into French demonstrates his popularity in France, and his works have also been translated into more than ten other languages, including Italian, German, Japanese, Hungarian, Czech, Spanish and Dutch.

"We belong to a civilization that is rooted in language. In the West, we are rarely able to do things that have not been put into words. All the revolutions of the late 18th century came after the reasoning had been put into place.

I believe that the writer's job is to attempt to show how things work and to put the process in simple, understandable terms. That's quite a job, quite an achievement. If, in Voltaire's Bastards or in Some Good Americans, I provide a few phrases, a few consciously formed ideas and they are taken up, that's no mean feat. We live in a time when people are trying to express their disagreement."2

John Ralston Saul

WORKS BY JOHN RALSTON SAUL

Works are listed in chronological order by copyright date. / L'arrangement des oeuvres est chronologique selon la date de copyright.

Fiction

• The Birds of Prey. -- Toronto : Ballantine Books, 1989, c1977. -- 211 p. -- ISBN 0345364015. -- Titre en français : Mort d'un général.
• Mort d'un général. -- Paris : Seuil, c1977. -- 318 p. -- ISBN 2253024260. -- English title: The Birds of Prey.
• Baraka. -- Toronto : Ballantine Books, 1989, c1983. -- 293 p. -- ISBN 0345364007.
• Baraka. -- Traduit par Henri Robillot. -- Paris : Lacombe, 1984. -- 304 p. -- ISBN 2890850145.
• The Next Best Thing. -- Toronto : Ballantine Books, 1990, c1986. -- 243 p. -- ISBN 0345367790. -- Titre en français : L'Ennemi du bien.
• L'Ennemi du bien. -- Traduit par Henri Robillot. -- [Paris] : Mazarine, 1986. -- 291 p. --
  ISBN 2863742388. -- English title: The Next Best Thing.
• The Paradise Eater. -- Toronto : Ballantine Books, 1989, c1988. -- 245 p. -- ISBN 0345361547 -- Titre en français : Paradis blues.
• Paradis Blues. -- Traduit par Henri Robillot. -- Paris : Payot, c1988. -- 354 p. -- ISBN 2228880787. -- English title: The Paradise Eater.
• De si bons américains. -- Traduit par Henri Robillot de Massembre. -- Paris : Payot & Rivages, c1994. -- 301p. -- ISBN 2869307667. -- English title: Some Good Americans.

Non-fiction

• Voltaire's Bastards : The Dictatorship of Reason in the West. -- New York : Free Press, c1992. -- 640 p. -- ISBN 0029277256. -- Titre en français : Les bâtards de Voltaire : la dictature de la raison en occident.
• Les Bâtards de Voltaire : la dictature de la raison en occident. -- Traduit par Sabine Boulongne. -- Paris : Payot, 1994, c1993. -- 654 p. - ISBN 2228887048. -- English title: Voltaire's Bastards : The Dictatorship of Reason in the West.
• The Doubter's Companion : A Dictionary of Aggressive Common Sense. -- Toronto : Penguin, 1994. -- ISBN 0140237070.

Essays

• «"Canada Today, Mexico Tomorrow..."». -- If You Love This Country : Facts and Feelings on Free trade. -- Toronto : McClelland & Stewart, c1987. -- ISBN 0771046979. -- P. 188-192.
• «The Secret Life of the Branch-Plant Executive». -- Report on Business Magazine. -- Vol. 4, no. 7 (January 1988). -- [ISSN 08277680]. -- P. 81-86.
• «We Are Not Authors of the Post-Novel Novel». -- The Brick Reader. -- Toronto : Coach House Press, c1991. -- ISBN 0889104220. -- P. 198-201.
• «Subversion in the North». -- Writing Away : The PEN Canada Travel Anthology. -- Toronto : McClelland & Stewart, c1994. -- ISBN 0771069561. -- P. 263-275.

INTERVIEWS WITH JOHN RALSTON SAUL

• Wigston, Nancy. - «East and West». -- Books in Canada. -- Vol. 17, no. 5 (June-July 1988). -- ISSN 00452564. -- P. 19-21.
• Pichette, Jean. -- «Les Technocrates contre la démocratie : entrevue avec John Ralston Saul». -- Relations. -- No 596 (décembre 1993). -- ISSN 00343781. -- P. 308-310.

For more information about John Ralston Saul's writing, contact the Canadian Literature Research Service (613)947-0827 or Reference and Information Services (613) 995-9481 at the National Library of Canada.

1. John Ralston Saul, Voltaire's Bastards : The Dictatorship of Reason in the West. New York : Free Press, c1992, back flap of book jacket.

2. Quoted by Marie-Paule Villeneuve «Un si bon canadien», Le Droit (samedi, le 25 juin, 1994), p. A10 [translation].