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Guy Gavriel Kay was born on November 7, 1954 in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, Canada. He became interested in fantasy fiction while working as an assistant to Christopher Tolkien. He assisted him with the editing of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Silmarillion. After receiving a law degree from the University of Toronto, he became principal writer and associate producer for the CBC radio series, The Scales of Justice. He also wrote several episodes when the series moved to television. He has written social and political commentary for several publications including the National Post, The Globe and Mail, and The Guardian. His first fantasy novels were The Summer Tree, The Wandering Fire, and The Darkest Road, which make up the Fionavar Tapestry Trilogy. His other works include A Song for Arbonne, The Lions of Al-Rassan, Beyond This Dark House, The Last Light of the Sun, and Under Heaven. He has received numerous awards including and the Aurora Award for Tigana and The Wandering Fire, the 2008 World Fantasy Award for Best Novel for Ysabel, and the International Goliardos Award for his work in the fantasy field. (Bowker Author Biography) — biography from Tigana… (more)
Tigana 4,795 copies, 137 reviews
The Summer Tree 3,862 copies, 100 reviews
The Lions of al-Rassan 3,059 copies, 97 reviews
The Wandering Fire 3,001 copies, 57 reviews
The Darkest Road 2,900 copies, 50 reviews
A Song for Arbonne 2,619 copies, 50 reviews
Sailing to Sarantium 2,474 copies, 50 reviews
Ysabel 1,912 copies, 89 reviews
The Last Light of the Sun 1,909 copies, 49 reviews
Lord of Emperors 1,878 copies, 41 reviews
Under Heaven 1,824 copies, 109 reviews
River of Stars 761 copies, 52 reviews
Children of Earth and Sky 708 copies, 40 reviews
A Brightness Long Ago 523 copies, 30 reviews
The Silmarillion (Editorial assistant) 32,657 copies, 257 reviews

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Short biography
Guy Gavriel Kay (born November 7, 1954) is a Canadian author of fantasy fiction. Many of his novels are set in fictional realms that resemble real places during real historical periods, such as Constantinople during the reign of Justinian I or Spain during the time of El Cid. Those works are published and marketed as historical fantasy, though the author himself has expressed a preference to shy away from genre categorization when possible. Kay was born in Weyburn, Saskatchewan, and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. When Christopher Tolkien needed an assistant to edit his father J.R.R. Tolkien's unpublished work, he chose Kay, then a student at the University of Manitoba, whose parents were friends of Baillie Tolkien's parents. Kay moved to Oxford in 1974 to assist Tolkien in the editing of The Silmarillion.

He returned to Canada in 1976 to finish a law degree at the University of Toronto, and became interested in fiction writing.

Kay became Principal Writer and Associate Producer for a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio series, The Scales of Justice.

In 1984, Kay's first fantasy work, The Summer Tree, the first volume of the trilogy The Fionavar Tapestry, was published.
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