Born in Coley's Point, Newfoundland, David French is one of Canada's most popular and critically acclaimed playwrights. Among his best-known works are the semi-autobiographical Mercer plays: Soldier's Heart; Salt-Water Moon; 1949; Leaving Home; and Of the Fields, Lately. Leaving Home was named one of Canada's 100 Most Influential Books (Literary Review of Canada) and one of the 1,000 Most Essential Plays in the English Language (Oxford Dictionary of Theatre). This quintet of plays about a Newfoundland family has received hundreds of productions across North America, and have also been seen by audiences in Europe, South America and Australia. (A Broadway production of Of the Fields, Lately starred Chris Cooper.)
French's other works include the smash-hit backstage comedy Jitters, the pool-hall drama One Crack Out, the memory play That Summer, the mystery play Silver Dagger, the dark comedy The Riddle of the World, as well as translations of Chekhov's The Seagull, and Strindberg's Miss Julie.
French’s work has received many major awards, including the Chalmers Award, the Dora Mavor Moore Award, the Canadian Authors' Association Literary Award for Drama, and the Hollywood Drama-Logue Critics Award. In 1989 he was inducted into the Newfoundland Arts Hall of Honour, and in 2001 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada. David French died in 2010.
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