Canadian novelist Richard B. Wright, who "published over 15 books during his illustrious career, including the novels Nightfall, The Age of Longing and In the Middle of a Life," died February 7, CBC News reported. He was 79. Wright's best known novel, Clara Callan, won the 2001 Giller Prize (now known as the Scotiabank Giller Prize), the 2001 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and the 2002 Trillium Book Award. His memoir, A Life with Words, was released in 2015. Wright became a member of the Order of Canada in 2007.
Iris Tupholme of HarperCollins Canada, which published Wright's work for two decades, described him as "a generous and gracious person, a stylist and a person of great wisdom and empathy for his characters, particularly for women."