About the Author
Erna Paris was born in Toronto and educated at the University of Toronto and the University of Paris (Sorbonne). She began her writing career as a magazine journalist, book reviewer, and radio documentary broadcaster (in French and English) before writing books of literary non-fiction.
Erna was the author of seven acclaimed books of literary non-fiction and the winner of twelve national and international writing awards, including a gold and silver medal from the National Magazine Awards Foundation, a bronze medal from The White Award for local issues reporting (Canada-US), and four Media Club of Canada awards for feature writing and radio documentary.
Her works include The End of Days: A Story of Tolerance, Tyranny and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain, which won the 1996 Canadian Jewish Book Award for History; and Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History, which won the Pearson Writers™ Trust Non-Fiction Prize (2001), the inaugural Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing (2001) and the Dorothy Shoichet Prize for History, Canadian Jewish Book Awards (2001).
Long Shadows was acclaimed a “best book of the year” by The Christian Science Monitor (U.S.), The New Statesman (U.K.) and The Globe and Mail (Canada). In 2005, Long Shadows was chosen as one of “The Hundred Most Important Books Ever Written In Canada” by the Literary Review of Canada. In October 2011, Long Shadows was chosen as one of Canada’s twenty-five most influential books of non-fiction.
The Sun Climbs Slow: Justice in the Age of Imperial America was published by Knopf Canada in February 2008. It was first on the “best book of the year” list (The Globe and Mail) and was shortlisted for the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing (2008).
The U.S. edition was published by Seven Stories Press in April 2009 as The Sun Climbs Slow: The International Criminal Court and the Struggle for Justice.
Her final book was From Tolerance to Tyranny: A Cautionary Tale from Fifteenth-Century Spain.
Read Erna’s obituary in the Globe and Mail.
