Guy Gavriel Kay (1954 – )

Many of his novels are set in fictional realms that resemble real places during real historical periods, such as Constantinople during the reign of Justinian I or Spain during the time of El Cid.

He was was born in Weyburn, Saskatchewan and raised in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Kay came into contact with Christopher Tolkien when Kay was a student at the University of Manitoba. When Tolkien needed an assistant to edit his father's unpublished work, he contacted Kay, and Kay moved to Oxford University in 1974 to work with Tolkien on the editing of
The Silmarillion.

Returning to Canada in 1976 to finish a law degree at the University of Toronto, Kay became interested in fiction writing. Kay became Principal Writer and Associate Producer for a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation radio series, The Scales of Justice.

In 1984, Kay's first fantasy work,
The Summer Tree, the first volume of the trilogy The Fionavar Tapestry, was published.