The Stone Diaries

The Stone Diaries

First Canadian edition
Author Carol Shields
Cover artist Andrea Pinnington (design); David Purdie (photography)
Country Canada
Language English
Publisher Random House of Canada
Publication date
1993
Pages 361 pp
ISBN 0-394-22362-4
OCLC 28022123

The Stone Diaries is a 1993 novel by Carol Shields.

It is the fictional autobiography of Daisy Goodwill Flett, a seemingly ordinary woman whose life is marked by death and loss from the beginning, when her mother dies during childbirth. Through marriage and motherhood, Daisy struggles to find contentment, never truly understanding her life's true purpose.

The book's title may have been inspired by Pat Lowther's poetry collection A Stone Diary (1977). Lowther's murder in 1975 was the inspiration for Shields' earlier novel Swann: A Mystery (1987).

Part of the setting for the book is the historic Vinegar Hill neighborhood of Bloomington, Indiana.[1]

Awards and nominations

The Stone Diaries, Shields' best-known novel, won the 1993 Governor General's Award for English language fiction in Canada and the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in the United States. It is currently the only novel to have won both awards. Being an American-born naturalized Canadian, Shields was eligible for both awards. It also received the National Book Critics Circle Award and was nominated for the Man Booker Prize.

References

  1. Indiana Historic Sites and Structures Inventory. City of Bloomington Interim Report. Bloomington: City of Bloomington, 2004-04, 90.

External links

Awards
Preceded by
The English Patient
Governor General's Award
1993
Succeeded by
A Discovery of Strangers


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