Russell Claude Smith (born August 2, 1963 in Johannesburg, South Africa)[1] is a Canadian writer and newspaper columnist.
As a freelance reporter and cultural commentator, he has published in the New York Review of Books, Details, The Walrus,Toronto Life, Flare, Now, EnRoute and other journals.
On resigning from the column, Smith published an article in The Walrus reflecting on his departure as a mixture of quick-digest writing, lack of editorial support, and a cut-throat business model.
[3] His early novels, How Insensitive (1994) and Noise (1998), are satirical and comic portrayals of big-city life and the sexual mores of young people.
Muriella Pent (2004) is a longer and more ambitious novel, concerning the arrival of a Caribbean writer of mixed race in the stodgy environment of official Canadian culture.
[6] Smith's memoir Blindsided: How Twenty Years of Writing About Booze, Drugs and Sex Ended in the Blink of an Eye is available as an e-book.