Prizes and Accolades
THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE WINS TWO OF THE WORLD'S TOP MYSTERY PRIZES October 15, 2010: Last night in San Francisco, Alan Bradley’s The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie won two prizes for the best first mystery novel in the world. The prizes were part of the opening ceremonies at the annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention, taking place October 14-17. In the author’s absence the awards were accepted on his behalf by Kate Miciak, Vice President and Editorial Director of Bantam Books and Delacorte Press in New York. (See www.bcon2010.com.) The two awards are:
The novel is also nominated for one more prize at Bouchercon, the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, to be awarded on Sunday. www.bcon2010.com/awards.php This brings to nine the number of awards won to date by The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. The others include:
Alan Bradley has just returned home from a four-city tour of Germany, where he appeared at the Frankfurt Book Fair and used payday loans online from the USA. His entourage on the tour included: his publicist; a famous German actress who performed dramatic readings from the book, and an MC/translator. Sweetness is #19 on the Der Spiegel bestseller list and is currently selling 1,000 copies a day in Germany. |
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PAUL GLENNON'S BOOKWEIRDER WINS THE SUNBURST AWARD September 15, 2011: The Sunburst Award Society for Excellence in Canadian Literature of the Fantastic has awarded its 2011 Young Adult Award to Paul Glennon’s Bookweirder. The jury commented: “This story evokes what the first few years of real reading were like – tumbling into story after story and losing track of the boundary between oneself and the books for a while. A must for any book-lover of any age.” |
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ANNABEL LYON WINS THE ROGERS WRITERS' TRUST AWARD Annabel Lyon beat out her idol, Alice Munro, to take the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize in Toronto on November 24, 2009. Lyon won the $25,000 award for her debut novel, The Golden Mean, a tale of Greek philosopher Aristotle's time as a tutor to the young Alexander the Great. The Golden Mean was shortlisted for all three major literary awards this fall, the others being the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Governor General's Literary Award. |  |
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2009 TORONTO BOOK AWARD GOES TO AUSTIN CLARKE Austin Clarke is the winner of the 2009 Toronto Book Award for his novel More, the story of an immigrant Caribbean woman set against the backdrop of gang violence in Toronto. The award of $11,000 is the latest accolade for the 75-year-old Barbados-born author, whose 2002 novel The Polished Hoe won the Giller, Trillium and Commonweath prizes. |  |
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ARCTIC FRONT SWEEPS THE DONNER The four authors of Arctic Front: Defending Canada in the Far North have won the 2009 Donner Prize, which is awarded annually for the best book on Canadian public policy. The winning co-authors, who share the $35,000 prize, are all Northern specialists. Ken Coates, a Donner finalist in 2000, is deanof arts and a history professor at the University of Waterloo; P. Whitney Lackenbauer is also a history professor at Waterloo; William Morrison, is the country's senior historian of the Canadian North and a professor at the University of North British Columbia, Prince George; and Greg Poelzer is the founding dean of undergraduate studies for the University of the Arctic, a consortium of 90 post-secondary institutions. |
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WAYSON CHOY WINS HARBOURFRONT FESTIVAL PRIZE Novelist and memoirist Wayson Choy has been named the winner of the $10,000 Harbourfront Festival Prize, an honour awarded annually to an individual who has made "a substantial contribution to the world of books and writing." Born in Vancouver, Choy, 69, was chosen by a three-member jury, it was announced on 23 September 2008. He received his cash award on 1 November 2008, the closing night of the 29th annual International Festival of Authors in Toronto. Choy's books include the novels The Jade Peony and All That Matters, and the memoirs Paper Shadows: A Chinatown Childhood and the upcoming Not Yet. |
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2008 GEORGE RYGA AWARD FOR SOCIAL AWARENESS IN LITERATURE Leilah Nadir's The Orange Trees of Baghdad is the winner of the George Ryga Award for Social Awareness in Literature. Sponsored by the George Ryga Society, BC Book World, CBC Radio (Kelowna) and Okanagan University College, this literary prize is granted to a B.C. writer who has achieved an outstanding degree of social awareness in a new book published in the preceding calendar year. Well done, Leilah! |
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2008 ARTHUR ELLIS AWARD WINNER Liam Durcan's García's Heart has been named the winner of the Arthur Ellis Award for Best First Novel. Congratulations to the author. |
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THE POLISHED HOE CHOSEN FOR COSTCO CELEBRATION To celebrate the tenth anniversary of company book buyer Pennie Clark Ianniciello, Costco is featuring 10 of her favourite titles from the past decade. Congratulations to Austin Clarke, whose novel The Polished Hoe has been chosen as one of “Pennie’s Picks” for this special event.
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2007 DAGGER AWARDS On July 5, at a gala ceremony in London, Alan Bradley was awarded the Debut Dagger award by the UK Crime Writers’ Association for The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie. This £500 prize is awarded to an unpublished work based on the first chapter and synopsis. The winner is selected by a panel of agents and publishers.
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LANSENS IS A WINNER AT THE BRITISH BOOK AWARDS On 28 March 28 2007 The Girls was declared the Bronze winner of the Richard & Judy Best Read of the Year Award at a gala event at London's Grosvenor House Hotel.
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CHATELAINE BOOK CLUB PICK Madame Zee by Pearl Luke is Chatelaine magazine's Book Club Pick for September 2006. |
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ANOSH IRANI'S PLAY BOMBAY BLACK WINNER OF FOUR DORA AWARDS Congratulations to playwright and novelist Anosh Irani, whose play Bombay Black won the award for Outstanding New Play at the 2006 Dora Awards. Bombay Black also won for Outstanding Set Design (Camellia Koo), Outstanding Costume Design (Camellia Koo), and Outstanding Sound Design/Composition (Suba Sankaran). |
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WINNER OF THE 2006 DARTMOUTH BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION On April 28th at the Atlantic Book Awards in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, George Elliott Clarke won the Dartmouth Book Award for Fiction for George & Rue (HarperCollins Canada, Carrol and Graf in the USA, Harvill in the UK). |
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CHOY INCLUDED IN 100 MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS IN CANADIAN HISTORY On November 18, 2006, the Literary Review of Canada published a selection of the 100 Most Important Books in Canadian History, which included Wayson Choy's first novel, The Jade Peony (1995). |
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THE HERO'S WALK GARNERS AWARDS Anita Badami's novel The Hero's Walk (Knopf Canada), about an Indian grandfather's struggle to raise his Canadian-born grandchild, was awarded the tenth annual Premio Citta di Gaeta, a prize for the best in the literature of travel and adventure in translation. The prize includes a cheque for 3000 Euros. The book was published in Italy earlier this year by Marsilio under the title Il passo dell'eroe. In June in Mogliano Venet,o just north of Venice, The Hero's Walk was awarded the seventeenth annual Giuseppe Berto Literary Prize for the best first novel translated into the Italian language in 2005. (Although it is her second novel, it is the first to be translated into Italian.) The prize included a cash award of 7500 Euros. |
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TRUDEAU FOUNDATION FELLOWSHIP Novelist (George & Rue), poet, playwright, librettist, and scholar George Elliott Clarke is the second writer to receive a prestigious Trudeau Foundation Fellowship, an award worth up to $225,000 over three years. Now in its third year, the foundation says on its web site that its goal is "to generate and enhance public debate on society's major issues and to provide citizens of Canada and the world with a deeper experience of, and commitment to, democracy" by establishing "a unique dialogue between outstanding scholars in the social sciences and humanities and creative individuals." Trudeau Fellowships cannot be solicited and there is no peer or self-nomination, "so recipients are unaware that they have even been considered.... All were the subject of a confidential and rigorous nomination and review process, and all are being rewarded for outstanding contributions to the social sciences and humanities." There were five winners this year. Last year, novelist Rohinton Mistry won a fellowship. George and Rue will be released in the UK in August 2005 and in the US in February 2006. |
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THE 2004 TRILLIUM PRIZE Wayson Choy's All That Matters was announced as the English-language winner at the 18th Annual Trillium Book Awards. All That Matters is the much-awaited sequel to Choy's first novel, The Jade Peony. The Jade Peony is told from the point of view of Chinatown's first generation of native-born children, as they struggle to reconcile their intense, mysterious community — riddled with secrets and often shaken by dramatic change — with the larger world they first encounter at school. In All That Matters Choy continues the story of the Chen family, this time narrated by First Son, Kiam-Kim. Dwelling on Kiam-Kim’s sense of responsibility to his community, Choy unfolds the Chen family’s secrets in thoughtful and luminous prose, leading the reader to a breathtaking conclusion that far transcends the limits of its time and place, and gestures towards all humanity. The Trillium Prize is awarded to the best book by an Ontario writer published in 2004. Along with the prestigious honour, Choy took home a cheque for $20,000. |
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K.M. HUNTER ARTIST AWARD Novelist Edward O'Connor has been awarded a 2005 K.M. Hunter Artist Award by the Ontario Arts Council and the K.M. Hunter Charitable Foundation. The awards are designed to support and encourage artists who have completed their professional training and have begun to establish themselves and make an impact in their chosen field. Every year, six awards of $8,000 each are presented in the fields of dance, literature, music, theatre and visual arts. O'Connor was the only winner in the literature category. He submitted a manuscript for a collection of stories, one of which, "Heard Melodies Are Sweet", will appear in this year's Journey Prize Anthology of the best Canadian short stories published last year. The story was originally published in The Fiddlehead (Spring 2004).The anthology will be released in October, and the prize-winner will be announced in March 2006.O'Connor has previously published a novel, Astral Projection (Random House, 2002). |
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HARRY JEROME AWARD FOR PROFESSIONAL EXCELLENCE The Harry Jerome Award for Professional Excellence was awarded to The Hanging of Angélique author, poet, and scholar Afua Cooper at a gala banquet on April 16, 2005. Established in 1983 by the Black Business and Professional Association, the awards honor the memory of Canadian Olympian, scholar, and social activist Harry Jerome, and the banquet helps to support scholarships for black Canadians. The Award for Professional Excellence is the highest overall prize. |
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CANADA'S FIRST POET LAUREATE George Bowering has completed his appointment as Canada's first ever Parliamentary Poet Laureate. George began to serve in this capacity on November 8th, 2002 and served until November 24, 2004. The duties of the two-year appointment included writing poetry for use in Parliament on special occasions, sponsoring poetry readings and advising the parliamentary librarian on the library’s collection. See his parliamentary website for further information. |
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WINNER OF THE 2004 DARTMOUTH BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION "Inspired in part by the Westray mining disaster, Leo McKay Jr.'s bestselling novel Twenty-Six is set in a small Nova Scotia town, where a family is changed forever after a devastating mining accident claims the lives of twenty-six men. In the aftermath of the explosion, and as the investigation into its causes unfolds, the members of the Burrows family are forced to confront each other - and themselves - bringing the novel to its moving and redemptive conclusion." —Writers Federation of Nova Scotia website |
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AUSTIN CLARKE'S THE POLISHED HOE WINS MULTIPLE AWARDS Finalist for the 2004 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Fiction The Commonwealth Writers Prize 2003 for Best Book The 2003 Trillium Book Award The 2002 Giller Prize
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THE 2003 DRAINIE-TAYLOR BIOGRAPHY PRIZE Warren Cariou was awarded this Canadian literary award, presented annually by the Writers' Trust of Canada for the best work of biography, autobiography, or personal memoir, for his powerful and moving story Lake of the Prairies: A Story of Belonging. |
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