Over the course of half a century, as radio producer, editor, talent scout, impresario, and anthologist, Robert Weaver nurtured and sustained three generations of writers. Among those he gave their earliest breaks were Alice Laidlaw (who became Alice Munro), Mordecai Richler, Timothy Findley, and Leonard Cohen. This book is an unbuttoned and colourful biography and an extended riff on the development of modern Canadian literature. It includes archival photographs and interviews with Weaver himself and with Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Alistair MacLeod, Barry Callaghan, Robert Fulford, and Janice Kulyk Keefer.

Chapter One - An Accidental Career

In November 1948 a tall, gangly young man reported for duty at the CBC building – “the old Kremlin” – the gabled brick Victorian pile at 354 Jarvis Street in downtown Toronto. A recent graduate in Honours English and Philosophy at the University of Toronto, he had intended to be a magazine writer, or a critic, or perhaps to work in publishing. He stumbled into his position as a program organizer in the Talks and Public Affairs Department of the CBC, stipulating at the time of his employment that his work some way involve literatures. As a result, he was put in charge of a rather innocuous fifteen-minute weekly slot of readings called Canadian Short Stories….

A series of coincidences – he calls them “accidents” – led to the career of Robert Weaver who, from a sequence of modest beginnings nearly sixty years ago, became the catalyst and facilitator of the flowering of contemporary Canadian literature…[,] godfather and muse to three generations of Canadian writers.

Click on a photo to enlarge.

What the critics have said

“Not everyone today will recognize the name Bob Weaver, but the name of his one-time protégé, Alice Munro, will certainly ring some bells. Early in Munro’s career—more than 50 years ago—Weaver, a producer of literary programming at CBC radio, gave her what he gave so many of the people who have become our country’s most respected writers: support, encouragement and a link to the literary world at a time in their lives when they had yet to make their marks….

“Kalman Naves has sussed out a great story in Robert Weaver, and with her self-effacing style, she wisely lets it unfold on its own. The result is a timely, relevant addition to our literary landscape….”

-Anne Chudobiak, The Montreal Gazette.  Read the full review.

Robert Weaver: Godfather of Canadian Literature is no standard formal biography, however. Elaine Kalman Naves is a journalist (in the best sense of that rather fluid term), and she has made no attempt to delve deeply into obscure archives. Indeed, her book is the product of extended interviews: with Weaver himself, with many of the surviving writers whose careers he nurtured, and with Eric Friesen, the CBC veteran broadcaster who was Weaver’s youthful boss during his later years with the corporation. What she offers is a multifaceted collage that may be unconventional, but that proves highly appropriate for a presentation of this particular man and the many areas in which he worked.

-W.J. Keith, Literary Review of Canada. Read the full review.

Writing to Robert Weaver at the CBC on 7 May 1975 to advocate for a young writer she wanted to help, Margaret Laurence made her case and, before closing, continued a bit apologetically, “I hope you don’t mind my approaching you about this, Bob, but as you have long been the Writers-Rock-of-Gibraltar, I thought you would not mind. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.” Found among the Robert Weaver Fonds at the National Archives (MG 31, D 162), this letter both encapsulates the central assumption of this book and offers an apt phrasing for Robert Weaver’s relation to Canadian literature. Working from the CBC between 1948-85, Weaver was, in fact, the “Rock-of-Gibraltar” for Canadian writers, something that Laurence knew well when she wrote to him.

-Robert Thacker, Canadian Literature - A Quarterly of Criticism and Review. Read the full review.

I don’t know another person in the CBC who was as loved and as admired and as warmly felt about as Bob Weaver.”

-Eric Friesen