Lawrence Hill

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For the suburb of Bracknell in the UK, see Lawrence Hill, Bracknell Forest, for the inner city area of Bristol, UK see Lawrence Hill, Bristol.

Lawrence Hill in 2008.

Lawrence Hill is a Canadian writer, whose memoir Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada, was a Canadian bestseller in 2001.

He is the author of the acclaimed novel The Book of Negroes, which was published in January 2007. A Canadian bestseller, it was longlisted for the Giller Prize and won the 2007 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize as well as the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize. The book was published in the US under the title Someone Knows My Name.

In 2007, Hill collaborated with former US-Army Soldier (now deserter) Joshua Key to write Key's account of the Iraq War. His book The Deserter's Tale, the story of an ordinary soldier who walked away from the war in Iraq is the result of their interviews and meetings.

Winner of the 2005 National Magazine Award for best essay for his work entitled, "Is Africa's Pain Black America's Burden?" (published in The Walrus magazine), Hill is the author of the novel Any Known Blood, about a young man's search for his roots, and also wrote the non-fiction Women of Vision, a history of the Canadian Negro Women's Association. His first novel, Some Great Thing, was published in 1992.

Additionally, Hill wrote the screenplay for "Seeking Salvation," a documentary about the Black Church in Canada. "Seeking Salvation" won the American Wilbur Award for best national television documentary in 2005.

Hill grew up in the Don Mills neighbourhood of Toronto and currently lives in Burlington with his wife and five children. He is the son of social scientist and public servant Daniel G. Hill and social activist Donna Hill, and is the brother of singer-songwriter Dan Hill.