All The Colour in the World by CS Richardson

Henry, born 1916, thin-as-sticks, nearsighted, is an obsessive doodlercopying illustrations from hisBoy's Ownmagazines. Left in the care of a nurturing, Shakespeare-quoting grandmother, eight-year-old Henry receives as a gift his first set of colouring pencils (and a pocket knife for the sharpening). As he commits these colours to memorycadmium yellow; burnt ochre; deep scarletreda passion for art, colour, and the stories of the great artists takes hold, and becomes Henry's unique way of seeing the world. It is a passion that will both haunt and sustain him on his journey through the century: from boyhood dreams on a summer beach to the hothouse of art academia and a love cut short by tragedy; from the psychological wounds of war to the redemption of unexpected love.

Projected against a backdrop of iconic masterpiecesfrom the rich hues of the European masters to the technicolour magic of HollywoodAll the Colour in the Worldis Henry's story: part miscellany, part memory palace, exquisitely precise with the emotional sweep of a great modern romance. (From Knopf Canada)

All the Colour in the Worldis onthe 2023 Scotiabank Giller Prize shortlist.

• The CBC Books fall reading list: 40 Canadian books to read this season
• The best Canadian fiction of 2023
• CS Richardson weaves art history with memory in the Giller Prize-finalist novel All the Colour in the World

CS Richardson is a Toronto-based writer and award-winning book designer. His previous novels includeThe End of the Alphabetwhich won the 2008 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book andThe Emperor of Paris,which was longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize in 2012.

Interviews withCS Richardson

The Next Chapter12:17Sometimes judge a book by its cover

Award-winning designer C.S. Richardson has been creating book covers for decades but when it comes to his own work, its a different story. The Giller Prize-shortlisted author talks about inspiration and creating his latest book All the Colour in the World with Ryan B. Patrick.