The QWF Literary Awards were handed out at the annual gala last night at the Lion d'Or.
Check back for photos in a few days.
Congratulations to all the nominees. The WINNERS are:
MCAUSLAN FIRST BOOK PRIZE
The Fruit Hunters by Adam Leith Gollner
In Gollner’s examination, the subject of fruit explodes into a political, ecological, personal, historical, and commercial narrative of epic proportions. …, Gollner’s descriptions of the near mystical tastes, textures and other qualities of the rarest or finest fruits lend a perfect logic to the obsessive quests for these fruits described in the book. No one who reads The Fruit Hunters will ever look at a piece fruit in the same way again. [The jurors.]
QWF PRIZE FOR CHILDREN'S AND YOUNG ADULT LITERATURE
Orphan Ahwak by Raquel Rivera
[This] is an engrossing, sometimes harrowing story of a First Nations girl who must learn to survive in the wilderness after her family is murdered.
Rivera has the skill and experience as a writer to keep the momentum going and going. [She] inserts just the right amount of magic into what is otherwise a very realistic account of a girl’s struggle to transform herself from a dependent child into a lone-wolf hunter. [The jurors.]
A. M. KLEIN PRIZE FOR POETRY
Sympathy for the Couriers by Peter Richardson
Richardson is an excellent poet of family life, and a touching elegist.
A. M. KLEIN PRIZE FOR POETRY
Sympathy for the Couriers by Peter Richardson
Richardson is an excellent poet of family life, and a touching elegist.
This collection … is absolutely invigorating, so various in its subject matter, skilled in its turns of language and line, and consistently interesting. Tonally there is also great variety: sometimes comic, sometimes rueful, and often more pained than that, there is still a lightness to the vision each opens.
Sometimes self mocking, but never easy or glib, the poems all ring true. [The jurors.]
PARAGRAPHE HUGH MACLENNAN PRIZE FOR FICTION
Cockroach by Rawi Hage
Rawi Hage’s Cockroach is a despairing, unsparing, often funny and always sympathetic portrait of burglar, refugee, and mad lover.
PARAGRAPHE HUGH MACLENNAN PRIZE FOR FICTION
Cockroach by Rawi Hage
Rawi Hage’s Cockroach is a despairing, unsparing, often funny and always sympathetic portrait of burglar, refugee, and mad lover.
This is a plain old-fashioned existential novel. If I had read it without knowing the author, I’d have suspected he was a disciple, not of Kafka but of Bruno Schultz. The novel would not have succeeded if Hage had flinched; he didn’t.
Cockroach is a literary achievement of the best kind: it’s imaginative and musical, psychologically layered and page-by-page suspenseful, about a character whose position we can all appreciate, though we’d rather not be there ourselves, on the edge of oblivion. Along with the best of the lowlife masterpieces – Hunger, The Outsider, Nadja, Notes from Underground, we now have Cockroach. [The jurors.]
MAVIS GALLANT PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION
Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood by Taras Grescoe
An alarming but impeccably researched book…
MAVIS GALLANT PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION
Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood by Taras Grescoe
An alarming but impeccably researched book…
Bottomfeeder sounds the alarm bells of a global crisis and makes it relevant to us all. Best of all, it provides answers and comfort in a doomsday world that is too often prone to make people feel glum and hopeless. Grescoe’s style is engaging, comprehensive, and compelling.
A travelogue as much as a cri de coeur, Bottomfeeder is an essential read. [The jurors.]
QWF TRANSLATION PRIZE
Big Bang de Neil Smith (Bang Crunch), traduit par Lori Saint-Martin et Paul Gagné
La version originale en anglais présentait des difficultés particulières, entre autres l’aspect éclaté, enjoué, parfois presque surréaliste, du langage. Lori Saint-Martin et Paul Gagné, dans leur traduction, ont trouvé une façon de bien rendre le côté ludique du livre ainsi que ses tournures inusitées tout en demeurant fidèle au sens et à l’esprit du texte.
QWF TRANSLATION PRIZE
Big Bang de Neil Smith (Bang Crunch), traduit par Lori Saint-Martin et Paul Gagné
La version originale en anglais présentait des difficultés particulières, entre autres l’aspect éclaté, enjoué, parfois presque surréaliste, du langage. Lori Saint-Martin et Paul Gagné, dans leur traduction, ont trouvé une façon de bien rendre le côté ludique du livre ainsi que ses tournures inusitées tout en demeurant fidèle au sens et à l’esprit du texte.
Big Bang se lit aussi bien en français qu’en anglais, à tel point qu’on pourrait croire qu’il a bel et bien été écrit en français. [The jurors.]
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QWF COMMUNITY AWARD
Mary Soderstrom
For Mary's outstanding involvement in and contributions to Quebec’s English-language literary life.
CARTE BLANCHE PRIZE for best submission
J.R. Carpenter's "Wyoming Is Haunted"
Check out J.R.'s story at Carte Blanche, the literary review of the Quebec Writers' Federation:
Mary Soderstrom
For Mary's outstanding involvement in and contributions to Quebec’s English-language literary life.
CARTE BLANCHE PRIZE for best submission
J.R. Carpenter's "Wyoming Is Haunted"
Check out J.R.'s story at Carte Blanche, the literary review of the Quebec Writers' Federation:
