John Sutherland

Sutherland, John

John Sutherland, writer, editor (b at Liverpool, NS 21 Feb 1919; d at Toronto 1 Sept 1956). Sutherland's formal studies (Queen's 1936-37 and McGill 1941-42) were interrupted by ill health which dogged him all his life. He brought critical insight and energy to his editorship of the important literary journal, First Statement (1942-45). This journal eventually merged with another, Preview, to become NORTHERN REVIEW, first appearing in 1946. Through his fervent, Marxist-slanted criticism and editing, he championed the emergence of modern Canadian literature. Poetry became his dominant interest at the end of his life, at which time he was a convert to Catholicism. This religious conversion informed his book on the poetry of E.J. PRATT. A collection of his writing is John Sutherland: Essays, Controversies and Poems, ed by Miriam Waddington (1972).