John Ralston Saul

Ralston Saul is an award-winning essayist and novelist. A long-time champion of freedom of expression, he was elected President of PEN International in October 2009 until October 2015. He has published six novels, including The Birds of Prey, as well as The Field Trilogy, which deals with the crisis of modern power and its clash with the individual. It includes Baraka or The Lives, Fortunes and Sacred Honor of Anthony Smith, The Next Best Thing, and The Paradise Eater. His most recent work of fiction – the first in over fifteen years – is Dark Diversions, a picaresque novel in which he observes the life of modern nouveaux riches Americans.

Saul is the Co-Chair of the Institute for Canadian Citizenship (ICC), a national charity promoting the inclusion of new citizens. He founded the ICC’s LaFontaine-Baldwin Symposium, a national lecture event that showcases leading Canadian and international thinkers and invites Canadians to join the national conversation on citizenship and the public good. He is also Founder and Honorary Chair of Le français pour l’avenir/French for the Future, an organization which advances the use of French among secondary school students, the patron of PLAN, a cutting edge organization serving people with disabilities. He is a Companion of the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario and a Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres of France.