Governor General's Literary Award - Fiction

On Tuesday, Linda Spalding won the 2012 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction with her historical novel The Purchase. I have not yet had a chance to read this book, but it sounds intriguing:

"Pennsylvania 1798. Daniel Dickinson, a young Quaker father and widower, leaves his home to establish a new life with his 5 children and a 15-year-old orphan wife. In an act of misplaced compassion, Daniel buys a young slave boy, Onesimus, setting off a chain of events that sweep over several generations."

Spalding was also nominated for the Rogers Writers' Trust Prize for Fiction, won by Siege 13 by Tamas Dobozy; Dobozy, in turn, was shortlisted for the GG Award. However, neither book was nominated for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, won by Will Ferguson for 419. This marks a broad year for Canadian fiction, with three very different books winning the big three awards. In 2011, the awards lists were dominated by two novels, Half-Blood Blues and The Sisters Brothers.

Read more about Linda Spalding at Maclean's, Quill & Quire, and CBC.

Tamas Dobozy Wins Rogers Writers' Trust Prize

Siege 13, Tamas Dobozy's collection of linked short stories, has won the $25,000 2012 Rogers Writers' Trust Prize. In my opinion, it is an excellent choice, as I enjoyed it thoroughly; to be fair, however, I have not read any of the other nominated works. Read more about the award at CBC.ca, or at the Writers' Trust of Canada site.

Review: Siege 13 by Tamas Dobozy

This collection of linked short stories is remarkable. Dobozy writes about the 1944 siege of Budapest and its effect on its citizens, the culture and the subsequent generations. His writing is sharp, and each story carries the memories of the siege that his characters cannot let go. Excellent!!

One more short list - the GGs

Yesterday, the finalists for the Governor General's Literary Awards were announced. There are seven categories in both languages, so the entire list is quite long. I am only going to focus on the fiction short list, which is, to me, the most interesting. The GG Award is the third in the Canadian trifecta of literary awards, along with the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Rogers Writers' Trust Prize for Fiction. Last year, both Esi Edugyan and Patrick deWitt were nominated for all three, with Edugyan winning the $50,000 Giller and deWitt winning the Writers' Trust and GG, at $25,000 each.

This year, there will be no possibility of a triple crown winner. No book has been nominated for all three awards, though several are in line to win two of the three. Here is the GG Fiction list:

Siege 13 by Tamas Dobozy

Dr. Brinkley's Tower by Robert Hough

The Headmaster's Wager by Vincent Lam

The Juliet Stories by Carrie Snyder

The Purchase by Linda Spalding

The biggest name on this list is Vincent Lam, who has already won the Giller for his 2006 collection of short stories, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures. However, Dobozy and Spalding are also nominated for the Writers' Trust Prize, making them the front-runners, in my mind. Then again, none of these five titles are nominated for the Giller Prize, which indicates an incredible dearth of Canadian fiction in 2012.

Also intriguing is the absence of several big names - Linden MacIntyre, Alice Munro, M.G. Vassanji and Annabel Lyon, all previous winners of major awards, have been omitted.

Another notable finalist is Sheila Fischman for translating Kim Thuy's Ru from French to English. Ru won the GG Award for French fiction in 2010, and the English version is nominated for this year's Giller Prize.

The Governor General's Literary Awards will be announced on November 13th.

Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize Nominees

Last week, the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize shortlist was announced. This is a lucrative prize, offering $25,000 to the winner. To this year's shortlisted nominees, it will mean that much more, as 4 of the 5 nominees are from independent presses. Here is the list:



Tim Bowling | The Tinsmith
Published by Brindle & Glass Publishing



Tamas Dobozy | Siege 13
Published by Thomas Allen Publishers



Rawi Hage | Carnival
Published by House of Anansi Press



Alix Ohlin | Inside
Published by House of Anansi Press



Linda Spalding | The Purchase
Published by McClelland & Stewart

(from Writers' Trust of Canada)

Alix Ohlin's Inside is longlisted for the Giller. Rawi Hage is a previous winner of the IMPAC Dublin Award for his novel De Niro's Game - interestingly, his previous two novels, De Niro's Game and Cockroach, were also shortlisted for the Writer's Trust Prize.

This year's jury consists of Esi Edugyan, Lynn Coady and Drew Hayden Taylor. The award will be announced on November 7th.

Read more about the shortlist at Quill & Quire.

Miriam Toews Wins Writers' Trust Award

Well, Miriam Toews won the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize yesterday, giving her one award this year so far for The Flying Troutmans. In case you're wondering, the Writers' Trust has a mission statement:

"The Writers' Trust believes that the remarkable talents of Canadian writers must not only be widely recognized and applauded; they must be rewarded. Our annual awards ensure that our writers' powerful voices will continue to be heard, at home and abroad. Awards provide writers with the time and resources needed to hone their craft. Awards inspire other authors to emulate them, expanding the nation's garden of literary excellence."

They are cultivators, I guess. CBC ranks the Writers' Trust prize up there with the Giller and the GGs. I didn't know this existed, but I am glad that Toews won - The F'ing Troutmans is a great book (I've just finished - review forthcoming) and Toews is a great writer. The GGs will be announced later today.