Early life Winkler was born in
Winnipeg, Manitoba and grew up loving theatre. He was introduced to French through his mother who studied the language in
Romania before coming to Canada when she was fifteen years old. In 1993, his documentary film
Breaking a Leg: Robert Lepage and the Echo Project was a
Genie Award nominee for
Best Short Documentary at the
14th Genie Awards.
Translation Winkler first began translating
Quebec literature in the late 1980s. He is a member of the
Literary Translators' Association of Canada.
Carmine Starnino describes Winkler as "one of [Canada's] most gifted and highly decorated practitioners." Winkler describes the process of translation as "a constant quest for perfect pitch" and a "sophisticated word game".
Sheila Fischman, his spouse, is also an award-winning translator. He describes her as the "doyenne of Canadian literary translation". Donald Winkler was nominated for the
Giller Prize twice: • in 2007, for
A Secret Between Us by
Daniel Poliquin, • and in 2015, for
Arvida by
Samuel Archibald In addition, he won the
Quebec Writers' Federation's Cole Foundation Translation Prize for his translation of
The Major Verbs by
Pierre Nepveu, Winkler's translation of
Arvida by
Samuel Archibald was also
short-listed for the 2016
Best Translated Book Awards.
List of Translations == Further reading ==