![The Island Walkers](/sites/default/files/styles/2_3_media_tiny/public/images/the_island_walkers.jpg?itok=9vKCTQBO 98w, /sites/default/files/styles/2_3_media_small/public/images/the_island_walkers.jpg?itok=N5Mxu3wn 121w, /sites/default/files/styles/2_3_media_medium/public/images/the_island_walkers.jpg?itok=G9nlJVtk 157w, /sites/default/files/styles/2_3_media_large/public/images/the_island_walkers.jpg?itok=1XS9m5Dr 171w, /sites/default/files/styles/2_3_media_x_large/public/images/the_island_walkers.jpg?itok=J3pbh6kA 215w, /sites/default/files/styles/2_3_media_huge/public/images/the_island_walkers.jpg?itok=5IOwlZ7a 282w)
John Bemrose is not a prolific novelist: The Island Walkers, a best-seller in his native Canada, was followed by a second novel, the Last Woman, in 2009 but, since then, nothing.
Bemrose, who was born in 1947, doesn’t devote himself - or his carefully-chosen words - to a single craft but to a range: he is a respected arts journalist, a teacher of ‘Creative Expression and Society’, and has written a play, Mother Moon, two volumes of poetry, and several radio programmes. The Island Walkers was inspired by his hometown Toronto and relates the lives, during the course of a year, of the blue-collar Walker family. Bemrose is not much of a talker about his work, but both reviewers and the prize judges were struck by his ability to conjure the texture of place.