Sheree Fitch, top left, Kim Thuy, Roza Nozari, Bren Simmers, Maria Reva, Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Julie Flett were awarded a total of $322,000.Supplied
Seven Canadian authors won a total of $322,000 at the Writers’ Trust awards ceremony at CBC’s Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto on Thursday. Three of the prizes were for new books, while four authors were honoured for their body of work.
Leanne Betasamosake Simpson earned the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, worth $75,000, for Theory of Water: Nishnaabe Maps to the Times Ahead. The work of literary non-fiction from the poet, academic and musician reflects on Indigenous peoples’ relationship with water. Simpson is of Mississauga Nishnaabe and Scottish descent.
A jury composed of Canadian non-fiction writers Matthew R. Morris, Lorri Neilsen Glenn and Niigaan Sinclair cited Theory of Water as a “brilliant and sintering weave of story, research and Nishnaabeg teachings.” The book is published by the Knopf Canada imprint Alchemy.
Canadian-Ukrainian opera librettist Maria Reva took home the $70,000 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize for her debut novel Endling. Published by Knopf Canada, the satirical Ukraine-set story about dying snail species was longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, won by Montreal-born David Szalay for his novel Flesh.
Writers’ Trust jury members Gary Barwin, Ali Bryan and Jasmine Sealy praised the “brilliantly metafictional” Endling as clear-eyed, hilarious and devastating. The award is named in honour of literary couple and Writers’ Trust co-founders Margaret Atwood and the late Graeme Gibson. Ms. Reva, who lives in New Westminster, B.C., was previously nominated for her 2020 short-story collection, Good Citizens Need Not Fear.
Iranian-Canadian writer, artist and therapist Roza Nozari received the $12,000 Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers for her memoir, All the Parts We Exile, also published by Knopf Canada. A jury comprising authors Gabrielle Boulianne-Tremblay, Darrin Hagen and Janika Oza cited the “powerful and fearless” debut that sheds light on the experience of being a queer, Muslim woman in Canada and “captivates with its raw portrait of the yearning to be oneself.”
Four authors were celebrated for their writing careers in Canada.
- Bren Simmers, a lifelong West Coaster who now lives on Prince Edward Island, was given the $60,000 Latner Griffin Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize.
- Sheree Fitch, an Ottawa-born children’s author, poet and novelist who was appointed to the Order of Canada in 2023, won the $40,000 Matt Cohen Award.
- Julie Flett, a Cree–Métis author/illustrator, earned the $40,000 Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People.
- Kim Thuy, a member of the Order of Canada and one of Quebec’s most successful authors, won the $25,000 Writers’ Trust Engel Findley Award, given to a mid-career writer.
The annual Writers’ Trust ceremony is part of the literary trophy high season in Canada. On Nov. 6, the Canada Council for the Arts announced the seven winners of the Governor-General’s Literary Awards, each worth $25,000.
Yesterday, the CBC Poetry Prize short list was made public. Jennifer Manuel, Brad Aaron Modlin, Jordan Redekop-Jones, Carly Straker and Jan A. Wozniak are in contention for $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and a writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity.
On Nov. 17, the winner of the country’s most prestigious literary award, the Giller Prize, will be named. The nominated authors are Mona Awad, Eddy Boudel Tan, Emma Donoghue, Emma Knight and Souvankham Thammavongsa.