Métis author’s novel shortlisted for Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize

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This article was published 27/09/2023 (713 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Red River Métis author Michelle Porter is one of five finalists for the $60,000 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.

The Newfoundland and Labrador-based Porter’s debut novel, A Grandmother Begins the Story, landed on the prize’s short list, announced on Sept. 27, alongside Emma Donoghue’s Learned By Heart, Amanda Peters’ The Berry Pickers, Kai Thomas’ In the Upper Country and Thomas Wharton’s The Book of Rain.

The jury citation said “Michelle Porter’s A Grandmother Begins the Story blows the doors off the typical family saga. This novel’s five Métis generations intertwine in wild, thrilling patterns, like the music that sustains them. Beautiful and daring, this book carries the weight of history lightly, and is full of surprises and shifts — we move between this world and the afterlife, human and animal characters, in a great imaginative dance. The story’s striking voices resound long after the final page.”

Jurors for this year’s Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize were francesca ekwuyasi, Alix Hawley and M.G. Vassanji. The winner will be announced on Nov. 21; each of the finalists will receive $5,000.