In the showdown that is the fall literary awards season, Patrick deWitt is first to draw.
The
author of the genrebending western The Sisters Brothers captured the
first major Canadian fiction prize of the year, when his novel won the
$25,000 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize at an awards ceremony in
Toronto Tuesday evening.
The jury described the book as “unlike any you may read during this or the coming years” and “unforgettable.”
“It’s
an honour that the judges saw fit to push it to the top,” said deWitt
moments after being named the winner. “They’re extending the life of my
work, and you can’t put a price on that.”
The British
Columbiaborn, Portland-based novelist has enjoyed a spectacular year;
The Sisters Brothers, which is published by House of Anansi, was
shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (which was ultimately won by Julian
Barnes) and is also nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Award
for Fiction and the Scotiabank Giller Prize.
“Now I really feel
like I can just enjoy the remaining ceremonies and just have a drink and
see what happens,” he said. “I probably won’t be as wound up as I was
moments before they announced me here tonight.”
Get breaking National news
The Sisters
Brothers has been a bestseller since being released in Canada this past
spring. Sarah MacLachlan, president and publisher of House of Anansi,
says that 20,000 copies of the “wacky western” are currently in print in
Canada. “And I know we have to go back to print,” she said. “It’s been a
huge success.” And a huge difference from deWitt’s one previous novel,
2009’s Ablutions, which was not even published in Canada.
“I never
studied writing, and none of my friends are writers,” said deWitt. “So
it was a completely foreign world to me, and I had no clue what to
expect. And I certainly didn’t expect something as grand as this.”
The
other finalists, who each receive $2,500, were Clark Blaise for The
Meagre Tarmac; Michael Christie for The Beggar’s Garden; Dan Vyleta for
The Quiet Twin; and Esi Edugyan for Half-Blood Blues. Like deWitt,
Edugyan’s novel, about the fate of a missing Afro-German jazz musician
who was arrested by the Nazis during the Second World War, was
shortlisted for the Booker Prize and is nominated for the Giller Prize,
which will be awarded next week, and the Governor General’s Literary
Award, the winner of which will be announced in mid-November.
In
total, the jury of Emma Donoghue, Rabindranath Maharaj and Margaret
Sweatman considered 120 books submitted by 53 publishers across the
country.
Comments
Want to discuss? Please read our Commenting Policy first.