Emma Donoghue among 5 writers shortlisted for $60K Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize
The award, named after Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson, recognizes the best Canadian fiction of the year
Bestselling author Emma Donoghue made the shortlist for this year's Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.
The annual $60,000 award recognizes the best novel or short story collection by a Canadian author.
The other nominees are Amanda Peters, Michelle Porter, Kai Thomas and Thomas Wharton.
Irish Canadian Donoghue is nominated for her historical fiction novel Learned by Heart. Nova Scotian writer Peters is being recognised for her novel The Berry Pickers; Newfoundland's Porter for her multigenerational novel A Grandmother Begins the Story; Thomas, who is originally from Ottawa, is a finalist for his historical fiction work In the Upper Country; and Edmonton's Wharton picked up the nomination for his ecological thriller The Book of Rain.
"This year's finalists are testament to the generational vitality of fiction in Canada," said Charlie Foran, executive director of Writers' Trust in a statement. "From debut to mid-career to a former winner, the 2023 shortlist offers the sweep and range of a literary culture alive with vital, complimentary voices."
This year's jury is composed of celebrated Canadian fiction writers francesca ekwuyasi, Alix Hawley and MG Vassanji.
The shortlisted writers were selected by the jury from 127 titles. Each finalist will receive $5,000.
The 2023 winner will be announced on Nov. 21 at the annual Writers' Trust Awards ceremony at CBC's Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto.
The prize is funded by businessman and philanthropist Jim Balsillie. Balsillie is the former co-CEO of Research in Motion.
The Writers' Trust of Canada has awarded an annual fiction prize since 1997, and it was renamed in honour of Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson in 2021.
Atwood and Gibson were among the five co-founders of the Writers' Trust of Canada, alongside fellow writers Pierre Berton, Margaret Laurence and David Young.
Neither Atwood nor Gibson were ever nominated for the prize that now bears their name.
The Writers' Trust of Canada is an organization that supports Canadian writers through literary awards, fellowships, financial grants, mentorships and more.
It gives out seven prizes in recognition of the year's best in fiction, nonfiction and short story, as well as mid-career and lifetime achievement awards.
Last year's winner of the Atwood Gibson Prize was P.E.I. writer Nicolas Herring for his novel Some Hellish.
Other past winners include katherena vermette, Austin Clarke, Alice Munro, Lawrence Hill, Miriam Toews, André Alexis and David Chariandy.
Get to know the 2023 finalists and their books below.
Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue
Learned by Heart is a riveting account of the boarding school romance between Anne Lister, a brilliant and headstrong troublemaker, and Eliza Raine, an orphan heiress banished from India to England. The novel draws on Lister's five-million-word secret journal and extensive research to craft the two womens' long-buried stories.
"Donoghue offers readers a profoundly unique, riveting, fiercely emotional, and compelling novel about two girls in love and its effect on the rest of their lives," said jurors in a statement. "Masterfully and inventively plotted, Learned by Heart is a story of rebellious love and rebellious women in a dangerous time."
Donoghue is an Irish Canadian writer known for her novels Landing, Room, Frog Music, The Wonder, The Pull of the Stars and the children's book The Lotterys Plus One. Room was adapted into a critically acclaimed film starring Brie Larson.
The Berry Pickers by Amanda Peters
In The Berry Pickers, a four-year-old girl from a Mi'kmaq family goes missing in Maine's blueberry fields in the 1960s. Nearly 50 years later, Norma, a young girl from an affluent family is determined to find out what her parents aren't telling her. Little by little, the two families' interconnected secrets unravel.
"Written in crystalline clear prose and brilliantly descriptive of a time and place, The Berry Pickers tells a moving story especially relevant to our times," said the jury. "The telling itself is compassionate, and the reader is left to mull on the events, the lives, and the society depicted."
Peters is a writer of Mi'kmaq and settler ancestry living in Annapolis Valley, N.S. She is the winner of the 2021 Indigenous Voices Award for Unpublished Prose and a participant in the 2021 Writers' Trust Rising Stars program.
A Grandmother Begins the Story by Michelle Porter
A Grandmother Begins the Story follows five generations of Métis women as they work to heal themselves and the land.
"This novel's five Métis generations intertwine in wild, thrilling patterns, like the music that sustains them," said the jury. "Beautiful and daring, this book carries the weight of history lightly, and is full of surprises and shifts. The story's striking voices resound long after the final page."
Porter also wrote the memoir Scratching River, the nonfiction book Approaching Fire, which was shortlisted for the Indigenous Voices Award in 2021 and a book of poetry, Inquiries, which was shortlisted for the Pat Lowther Memorial Award. She lives in Newfoundland and Labrador. Porter made the 2019 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for her story Fireweed. Before that, she'd also made the 2017 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Slicing Lemons in April and the 2016 CBC Poetry Prize longlist for Between you and home.
In The Upper Country by Kai Thomas
In The Upper Country, young Lensinda Martin is summoned to interview an old woman who shot and killed a slave hunter. The woman, who recently arrived in Dunmore, Alta. via the Underground Railroad, refuses to confess but instead proposes a deal: a story for a story. Through these stories, the interwoven nature of Indigenous and Black histories in North America become apparent and Lensinda's destiny could be changed forever.
"In this exceptional debut, Thomas deftly and compassionately braids deeply engrossing stories within stories," said the jury. "He immerses us in the novel's compelling landscape where, despite an honest depiction of the effects and consequences of enslavement for Black and Indigenous peoples in Canada, hope remains palpable."
Thomas is a writer, carpenter and land steward. Born and raised in Ottawa, he is of Black and mixed heritage descended from Trinidad and the British Isles. CBC Books named Thomas a Black writer to watch in 2023.
The Book of Rain by Thomas Wharton
The Book of Rain is a sci-fi novel about a new lucrative energy source that disrupts time and space. The town is evacuated and cordoned off, but the former residents of the mining town can't seem to stay away.
"Wharton's writing is clear and elegant, yet the story continually startles readers with the turns it takes as its characters seek what has been lost," said jurors. "He accomplishes this with precision and grace. The Book of Rain shimmers with imagination, depth, and optimism."
Edmonton author and professor Wharton has written several books, including his first novel, Icefields, which won the 1996 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best First Book in Canada and the Caribbean. Icefields was a finalist for Canada Reads 2008, when it was defended by Steve MacLean. His novel Salamander, was shortlisted for the 2001 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and was also a finalist for the Writers' Trust Fiction Prize the same year.
Corrections
- This post has been updated to correct plot details for In The Upper Country by Kai Thomas.Feb 14, 2024 11:45 AM ET
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