Bergen back on Giller Prize long list
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 09/09/2023 (1096 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Fall book awards season in Canada kicked off in earnest this past week, with Winnipeg author David Bergen earning a nod on the Scotiabank Giller Prize’s 12-book long list for his latest novel, Away With the Dead. (If you’re reading the dead-tree edition of the Free Press, look to the left of this column for a review.)
The Giller nod is Bergen’s sixth; in 2005, he won the prize for his novel The Time in Between.
Other longlisted authors include Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer for her novel Wait Softly Brother, C.S. Richardson for All the Colour in the World, Eleanor Catton for Birnam Wood and Erum Shazia Hasan for We Meant Well. Over half of this year’s 12 longlisted titles came from smaller/independent publishers.
This year’s jurors were Canadian authors Sharon Bala, Ian Williams and Brian Thomas Isaac as well as well as international judges/authors Rebecca Makkai and Neel Mukherjee. The five-book short list will be revealed Oct. 10, and the winner revealed on Nov. 13. Each finalist will receive $10,000, while the winner will receive $100,000.
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Award-winning Manitoba-born author and playwright Tomson Highway’s latest project aims to enlighten and entertain young readers (and listeners) in both English and Cree.
Grand Chief Salamoo Cook is Coming to Town, published Sept. 1 by The Secret Mountain, is being dubbed a “musical picture book” and features stories and songs written by Highway, with illustrations by Delphine Renon. The book follows a group of Cree-speaking rabbits, including young Weeskits, who’s rushing home to Kisoos, their home, to deliver the news that Salamoo Cook, grand chief of all rabbits, is en route to announce a mysterious contest.
The book includes a Cree glossary, a teaching guide as well as a QR code which readers can scan to access nine songs performed in Cree, Highway’s birth language, by singers Coral Egan, Alexandre Désilets, Moe Clark and Angel Bariveau, with narration by Jimmy Blais.
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The Toronto Book Awards announced their five-title short list on Sept. 5, with finalists spanning a range of genres.
The finalists for the prize are Dionne Brand for Nomenclature: New and Collected Poems, Sophie Jai for her debut novel Wild Fires, Wanda Nanibush and Georgiana Uhlyarik for Moving the Museum: Indigenous + Canadian Art at the AGO, Sheila Murray for her debut novel Finding Edward and Carolyn Whitzman for her true-crime tale Clara at the Door with a Revolver: The Scandalous Black Suspect, the Exemplary White Son, and the Murder That Shocked Toronto.
The winner of the prize, to be announced Oct. 10, will receive $10,000, while each of the finalists will take home $1,000.
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A new anthology of spirital poems, hymns and more from all corners of the globe features a bevy of talented writers who most English readers won’t recognize.
To Heaven’s Rim: The Kingdom Poets Book of World Christian Poetry, Beginnings to 1800, in English Translation brings together a myriad of voices from Syria, China, the Philippines, Europe, Ethiopia and beyond, showcasing a range of Christian poetry in print and song.
Editor Burl Horniachek will launch the collection on Wednesday at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson Booksellers’ Grant Park location and will be joined by local poets Sarah Klassen, Sally Ito and Joanne Epp, who will read selections from To Heaven’s Rim.
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Award-winning children’s writer Martha Brooks launches her first novel for adults on Thursday at 7 p.m. at McNally Robinson’s Grant Park location, where she’ll be joined by Karen Toole.
Brooks won the Governor General’s Award for English-language children’s literature for her 2002 young adult novel, True Confessions of a Heartless Girl, and in 2007 the Writers’s Trust of Canada awarded her the Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People for her entire body of work.
Her new novel, Dear Miss Lovelorn: Prose and Possibility, is told through a series of diary entries and letters, and follows a patient at a tuberculosis sanatorium in 1947 who befriends a visiting journalist.
books@winnipegfreepress.com
Ben Sigurdson
Literary editor, drinks writer
Ben Sigurdson is the Free Press‘s literary editor and drinks writer. He graduated with a master of arts degree in English from the University of Manitoba in 2005, the same year he began writing Uncorked, the weekly Free Press drinks column. He joined the Free Press full time in 2013 as a copy editor before being appointed literary editor in 2014. Read more about Ben.
In addition to providing opinions and analysis on wine and drinks, Ben oversees a team of freelance book reviewers and produces content for the arts and life section, all of which is reviewed by the Free Press’s editing team before being posted online or published in print. It’s part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
Ben Sigurdson
Literary editor, drinks writer
Ben Sigurdson is the Free Press‘s literary editor and drinks writer. He graduated with a master of arts degree in English from the University of Manitoba in 2005, the same year he began writing Uncorked, the weekly Free Press drinks column. He joined the Free Press full time in 2013 as a copy editor before being appointed literary editor in 2014. Read more about Ben.
In addition to providing opinions and analysis on wine and drinks, Ben oversees a team of freelance book reviewers and produces content for the arts and life section, all of which is reviewed by the Free Press’s editing team before being posted online or published in print. It’s part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.
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