University of Toronto instructor and author David Gilmour is apologizing over recent comments he made in an interview.
Gilmour told Random House earlier in the week that he is "not interested in teaching books by women," CBC reports. There is one exception: Virginia Woolf.
"Virginia Woolf is the only writer that interests me as a woman writer, so I do teach one of her short stories."
The instructor says, "[w]hat I teach is guys. Serious heterosexual guys. F. Scott Fitzgerald, Chekhov, Tolstoy. Realy guy-guys. Henry Miller. Phillip Roth."
He says he isn't "passionate" towards female authors or Chinese authors and therefore doesn't bother teaching them.
He defended his position on Wednesday saying, "I teach middle-aged men writers not because they are better or because women are not as good... I only teach what I adore and can communicate. I'm simply not passionately enough engaged in female writers. That's all."
Well, now the award-winning author is offering an apology, CTV News notes.
"I understand what it's like to be offended when you read something, and to those people I'm absolutely sorry. ...I've been interviewed for 25 years, I just let it slip and you pay the price."
He goes on to say that he didn't mean women writers were "inferior," but rather he is only "good" at "teaching men writers."
Gilmour won the 2008 Governor General's Literary Award for A Perfect Night to Go to China.
image: Amazon