by Fil Fraser
Running
Uphill showcases Harry Jerome’s race upon the treadmill of “race,”
where progress against racism is glacial, even for an Olympic sprinter.
Fil Fraser explains this pernicious irony, this very Canadian paradox,
in masterful, beautiful prose. His humour is a razor; his honesty is a
guillotine. In Fraser’s bio, heroic Jerome looms larger than life—and
too fast for anyone to weight him down with labels.
George Elliott Clarke, Laureate, 2005–08,
Pierre Elliott Trudeau Fellowship Prize
Harry Jerome is Canada’s Jessie Owens.
He faced the same battles in his time as Jessie did. Frankly, Harry Jerome’s
face should be on a dollar bill. He should be a national hero for what
he went through.
Donovan Bailey, five-time world and Olympic champion