Austin Ardinel Chesterfield Clarke, CM, O.Ont (born July 26, 1934) is a Canadian novelist, essayist and short story writer who lives in Toronto, Ontario. Born in St. James, Barbados, in 1955 Clarke moved to Canada, where he attended the University of Toronto.
He was a reporter in the Ontario communities of Timmins and Kirkland Lake, before joining the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation as a freelance journalist.
In 1998, he was made a Member of the Order of Canada. He won the Giller Prize for The Polished Hoe in 2002, as well as the Commonwealth Writers Prize in 2003. In 2009 he received the Toronto Book Award for his novel "[More]".