Guy Gavriel Kay

Guy Gavriel Kay, guest of honor at the ICon 2004 festival, is one of the major and most important authors in the fantasy world of the last twenty years. His work has been the basis of fantasy literature set in parallels of our history.

Kay was born in Canada in 1954. He completed a bachelor’s degree in philosophy in 1975 and a law degree in 1978. In the 70s he was assistant to Christopher Tolkien, son of J.R.R. Tolkien, at the time when the Silmarilion was being prepared for publishing. In the 80s he began publishing fantasy works of his own. The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire, and The Darkest Road -- the three volumes of the Fionavar Tapestry trilogy – came out between 1984 and 1986, receiving a wide acclaim among readers of the genre. The trilogy made intentional use of many Tolkienesque components in the attempt to prove that original work can still be created with use of the “Tolkien toolbox.”

The Fionavar trilogy was very popular in Canada, and gained success in the United States and in Britain as well. “The Wandering Fire” won the Casper award (whose name has since been changed to the Aurora) for best science fiction and fantasy novel of the year. The trilogy was also nominated to the World Fantasy award, and won the 29th place in the 1998 Locus survey for the best fantasy novel of all time.

Kay’s next novel, Tigana (1990), was the first to be written in the method that characterizes his novels ever since -- using a historical time and place as background, in a story that is an adaptation of true history, with the addition of fantastical elements at some level or another. Tigana was set in a parallel of late-medieval Italy, at the time when it was invaded by Spain and France; Kay lived in Tuscany for a long time while he was researching the materials for the novel.

Out of all of Kay’s novels that belong to the sub-genre sometimes referred to as “parallel history,” Tigana is the most remote from the historical source material. The novel, dealing with the fight for freedom, with historical and personal memory, with war, family, oppression and magic, gained incredible popularity in Canada as well as the Aurora award for best Canadian science fiction and fantasy novel of the year. Tigana was nominated for the World Fantasy award and the Mythopoetic Society award. In Israel it was included in the YNet list of 25 best fantasy books.

From Italy, Kay moved over to Provence, where he set his next novel - A Song for Arbonne (1992). The novel dealt with the only intra-European crusade, whose aim was to fight what was known as “the Albigian heresy” or “the Kathar heresy." The novel was a love poem to Provence, its culture and its music. As a result of the success of Kay’s previous novels, A Song for Arbonne took first place in the Canadian best-sellers list as soon as it was published.

In 1995 Kay published his next novel, considered by some to be his best, although it is unarguably the one containing the fewest fantastical elements. This novel, The Lions of El-Rassan, is set in Spain of the Reconquista – the period in which Spain was reconquered by Christians from the hands of the Muslims. This is the first novel in which Kay’s Jewish origin can be traced directly, as the persecution of the Kindath -- the parallel to the Jewish people in El-Rassan, which is Kay’s parallel of Spain -- accurately reflects history. One of the three main characters in the novel is a female doctor of Kindath origin.

1998 and 2000 saw the publication of Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors, the two volumes of The Sarantine Mosaic. These novels were set in sixth-century Byzantium, in the days of Justinian and Theodora, and inspired by Yeats’ well-known poem “Sailing to Byzantium.” They marked a return to more prominent fantastical elements in Kay’s work, and expressed his love for art and creative work.

In 2004 Kay published The Last Light of the Sun, a novel set in Scandinavia, Wales and England in the time of Alfred the Great -- the time in which England established itself as a significant nation capable of self-defense. The novel is set in the same world as The Lions of Al-Rassan, The Sarantine Mosaic, and A Song for Arbonne.

Kay is, without a doubt, one of the most talented and influential authors in contemporary fantasy, and his world-wide popularity and influence has not missed Israel. Some of the best-loved fantasy novels among Hebrew readers in the last few years are translated editions of Kay’s Tigana and The Sarantine Mosaic, with The Lions of Al-Rassan joining them recently in the spring of 2004.

For more information about Guy Gavriel Kay, see the authorized website at http://brightweavings.com.