In a 1974 Maclean's editorial Our Authors are Being Ripped Off, Engel outlined a vision for author compensation based on library circulation statistics. Pensions for writers and royalties from library loans were two of the issues Engel championed. Engel also helped instigate the Public Lending Right Commission as a trustee on the Toronto Public Library Board from 1975-1978. She was the first chair of the Writers' Union of Canada, established in 1973, with early meetings taking place in her Toronto home. From 1975-1977 she served on the City of Toronto Book Award (an award she won in 1981 for Lunatic Villas ) Committee and the Canadian Book and Periodical Development Council.Įngel was a passionate activist for the rights of Canadian writers on the national and international stage.

Engel was writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta from 1977 to 1978 and served the same role at the University of Toronto from 1980 to 1982. Įngel taught briefly (1957–58) at The Study in Montreal, as well as at McGill University, the University of Montana-Missoula and St. Marian and Howard separated in 1975 and divorced in 1977. She began to raise a family, twin children, William Lucas Passmore and Charlotte Helen Arabella, and to pursue a writing career. : 57–58Įngel met Howard Engel, a mystery novel writer and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) radio producer in Canada, and married him in England in 1962. Instead of returning to Canada the following year, she worked in England as a translator and began working on the unpublished manuscript Women Travelling Alone. In 1960 Engel was awarded a Rotary Foundation Scholarship and spent a year studying French Literature at the Université d'Aix-Marseille in Aix-en Provence, France. supervisor while at McGill was author Hugh MacLennan, whom she corresponded with until her death. Īfter graduating from the Sarnia Collegiate Institute & Technical School, Engel obtained her Bachelor of Arts in Language Studies at McMaster University in 1955 and completed a Master of Arts in Canadian Literature at McGill University in 1957. The family moved frequently and Engel spent time as a child in Port Arthur, Brantford, Galt, Hamilton and Sarnia. : 17 Her father taught auto mechanics, taking on positions at schools across southwestern Ontario.

Biography īorn May 24, 1933, in Toronto, Ontario, Engel lived the first years of her life in foster care before being adopted by Frederick Searle and Mary Elizabeth (Fletcher) Passmore. Her most famous and controversial novel was Bear (1976), a tale of erotic love between an archivist and a bear.

Marian Ruth Engel OC (née Passmore – February 16, 1985) was a Canadian novelist and a founding member of the Writers' Union of Canada.

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