George McWhirter is a professor in the Creative Writing Program at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of over a dozen books of poetry and fiction. His translation of selected poems by Jose Emilio Pacheco won him the F.R. Scott Prize for translation. Mr. McWhirter's collection, Catalan Poems, shared the Commonwealth Poetry Prize, and his novel, Cage, won the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize in 1987.