TORONTO – Vancouver-born, Montreal-based Madeleine Thien has won this year’s Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction and is in line for a second major book prize later today.
Thien’s novel “Do Not Say We Have Nothing” (Knopf Canada) is also in contention for the prestigious 50,000 pound (C$81,000) Man Booker Prize being awarded in London.
If she wins, Thien would join Michael Ondaatje as the only Canadian authors to receive both awards in the same year. Ondaatje received the dual honour in 1992 for “The English Patient.”
Set in China before, during and after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, Thien’s novel has skyrocketed to the top of the bestseller list and emerged among the most acclaimed titles of the season.
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“Do Not Say We Have Nothing” has also been shortlisted for the $100,000 Scotiabank Giller Prize being handed out next month.
Saskatoon’s Bill Waiser received the Governor General’s Literary Award in the non-fiction category for “A World We Have Lost: Saskatchewan Before 1905” (Fifth House Publishers), which explores the early history of Saskatchewan through an aboriginal and environmental lens.
Montreal-based Lazer Lederhendler was honoured in the translation (French to English) category for the Giller-nominated “The Party Wall” (Biblioasis) written by Catherine Leroux.
Rounding out the list of winners are:
– Poetry: “The Waking Comes Late” by Steven Heighton of Kingston, Ont.
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– Drama: “Pig Girl” by Colleen Murphy of Toronto
– Young people’s literature (text): “Calvin” by Martine Leavitt of High River, Alta.
– Young people’s literature (illustrated books): “Tokyo Digs a Garden” by Jon-Erik Lappano and Kellen Hatanaka (Guelph, Ont./Stratford, Ont.)
“2016 is an excellent vintage for the GG Awards – full-bodied, nuanced, and sure to satisfy the palates of a discerning public eager to discover new and meaningful worlds,” said Simon Brault, director and CEO of the Canada Council for the Arts.
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Commemorating its 80th anniversary, the Governor General’s Literary Awards have celebrated more than 700 works by more than 500 authors, poets, playwrights, translators and illustrators.
When the awards first launched in 1936, only fiction and non-fiction titles were honoured. The inaugural fiction prize winner was Bertram Brooker for his debut novel “Think of the Earth.” The first-ever non-fiction award was given to Thomas Beattie Roberton for “T.B.R. Newspaper Pieces.”
In the years since, some of the most legendary figures in Canadian literature have been among the award recipients, including Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields and the late Pierre Berton and Mordecai Richler.
The Canada Council for the Arts administers the awards, which hand out nearly $450,000 in prizes. Each winner, chosen by peer assessment committees, receives $25,000. The other finalists are each awarded $1,000.
In celebration of the 80th anniversary, the exhibition “People, Places, Things: Reading GG Books” will be on display at Ajagemo art space at 150 Elgin St. in Ottawa until next February.
The awards will be presented by Gov. Gen. David Johnston in a ceremony at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Nov. 30.
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