Local writers lauded at Manitoba Book Awards

Six different writers took home prizes at the 2026 Manitoba Book Awards, which were handed out at a ceremony on Sept. 19 at the Park Theatre.

The awards returned this year in a scaled-back capacity after a two-year hiatus, following a 2023 feasibility study commissioned by then-organizers which deemed the Manitoba Book Awards unsustainable. The awards are now run by a board of arts workers and writers; this year a half-dozen awards were presented, with a larger rollout planned for 2027 including the return of the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award.

Half of the six award winners won prizes for their first published books: Zilla Jones took home the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction for her debut novel The World So Wide, Governor General’s Literary Award winner Chimwemwe Undi won the Lansdowne Prize for Poetry for her collection Scientific Marvel, and the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book went to Cale Plett for their young-adult debut Wavelength.

The Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award went to Kevin Nikkel for Founding Folks: An Oral History of the Winnipeg Folk Festival, published by University of Manitoba Press, the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for non-fiction went to Linda Trinh’s Seeking Spirit: A Vietnamese (Non)Buddhist Memoir, and the sole French-language award, Le prix littéraire Rue-Deschambault, was won by J.R. Léveillé for Lauréat — Poésie franco-ouestienne, 1974-2024, published by Winnipeg’s Les Éditions du blé.

Jurors evaluated 42 submissions in both English and French for the 2026 Manitoba Book Awards — for a complete list of finalists see manitobabookawards.ca.