The Illegal

Lawrence Hill (born 1957) is a Canadian journalist and author of biracial heritage; his parents, Daniel and Donna Hill, immigrated from the US in 1953. At the time, interracial marriage was illegal in many US states, though not in Washington DC, where the couple wed. Both Hill’s parents were committed civil rights activists who continued their work in a suburb of Toronto, Ontario, helping to secure the passage of anti-discrimination laws (Siemerling, Winfried. “Lawrence Hill.” The Canadian Encyclopedia¸ 8 Jun. 2010). This immersion in the activist community had a lasting impact on Hill, who explores issues of racism and human rights in many of his works, including The Illegal as well as Someone Knows My Name (published in Canada as The Book of Negroes). The latter, published in 2007, won several prizes and is likely Hill’s best-known work.

As a boy, Hill hoped to become an Olympic distance runner—an interest that informs the premise and protagonist of The Illegal. However, Hill’s 5,000-meter times were not competitive at the elite level, so he switched his focus (“About the Author.” Lawrence Hill). Hill earned a bachelor’s degree in economics from Université Laval and a master’s in writing from Johns Hopkins, working as a reporter for publications like The Globe and Mail and The Winnipeg Free Press before branching out into fiction and creative nonfiction.