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2009 | 2008 Winners | 2008 Shortlist | 2007
The Quebec Writers' Federation (QWF) holds an annual juried competition for published books by Quebec authors in six categories:
- Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction
- Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction
- A. M. Klein Prize for Poetry
- McAuslan First Book Prize
- QWF Prize for Children's & Young Adult Literature
- QWF Translation Prize (French and English, with target language alternating each
Winners 2009 QWF Literary Awards
The same day he was passed over for a Governor General's award, Eric Siblin (right) won two Quebec Writers' Federation prizes for his non-fiction Bach book, The Cello Suites.He won the McAuslan First Book Prize and the Mavis Gallant Prize for non-fiction, and the jury said The Cello Suites was "an almost pitch-perfect story of the making of one of the great pieces of music in Western civilization." Each QWF Literary Award is worth $2,000.
In his book, Siblin intersects the life of Johann Sebastian Bach with the story of 20th century cellist Pablo Casals and his love of Bach's Cello Suites. Siblin's own quest to discover the music, and perhaps even the missing manuscript for the original composition, is woven into those narratives.
Siblin's book was also nominated for a Governor General's Literary Award, but the non-fiction prize went to Toronto novelist M.G. Vassanji for A Place Within: Rediscovering India.
Other QWF Literary Award winners:
- Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction: Colin McAdam, Fall.
- A. M. Klein Prize for Poetry: Carmine Starnino,This Way Out.
- Translation Prize, French to English: Lazer Lederhendler, Nikolski.
- Children's and Young Adult Literature: Monique Polak, What World Is Left.
Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction ($2000)
2009 Jurors: Noah Richler, Struan Sinclair, Aparna Sanyal
Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction ($2000)
2009 Jurors: Noah Richler, Struan Sinclair, Aparna Sanyal
Jon Paul Fiorentino, Stripmalling, ECW Press
Harold Hoefle, The Mountain Clinic, Oberon Press
Colin McAdam, Fall , Hamish Hamilton Canada (Penguin Group Canada) - Winner
Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction ($2000)
2009 Jurors: David Leahy, Susan Olding, Makeda Silvera
Yves Engler, The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, Fernwood Publishing
Patrick McDonagh, Idiocy: A Cultural History, Liverpool University Press
Eric Siblin, The Cello Suites, House of Anansi Press
A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry ($2000)
2009 Jurors: Jeramy Dodds, Yedda Morrison, Fraser Sutherland
Norm Sibum, The Pangborn Defence, Biblioasis
Mike Spry, Jack, Snare Books
Carmine Starnino, This Way Out, Gaspereau Press
McAuslan First Book Prize ($2,000)
2009 Jurors: Wayne Johnston, Stan Persky, Fred Wah
Eric Siblin, The Cello Suites, House of Anansi Press
Gillian Sze, Fish Bones, DC Books
Alice Zorn, Ruins and Relics, NeWest Press
QWF Prize for Children's & Young Adult Literature
2009 Jurors: Lis Clemens, Robert Heidbreder, Itah Sadu
Jane Barclay, Proud as a Peacock, Brave as a Lion, Tundra Books
Marie-Louise Gay, When Stella Was Very, Very Small, Groundwood Books
Monique Polak, What World is Left, Orca Book Publishers
Translation Prize ($2000), sponsored by Pierre Lapointe
2009 Jurors: Debbie Blythe, Katia Grubisic, Jo-Anne Elder
Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood, Fences in Breathing Coach House Books
a translation of La Capture du sombre by Nicole Brossard
Leméac Éditeur , David Homel and Fred A. Reed , Wildlives, Douglas & McIntyre
a translation of Champagne by Monique Proulx, Les Éditions du Boréal
Lazer Lederhendler , Nikolski, Knopf Canada , a translation of
Nikolski by Nicolas Dickner, Éditions Alto
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2008 Quebec Writers’ Federation Literary Awards Winners
Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction
Rawi Hage, Cockroach (House of Anansi Press)- more
Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction
Taras Grescoe (left), Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood (HarperCollins Canada)-more
A. M. Klein Prize for Poetry
- Peter Richardson, Sympathy for the Couriers (Véhicule Press)- more
McAuslan First Book Prize
Adam Gollner, The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession (Doubleday Canada)- more
QWF Prize for Children's & Young Adult Literature
Raquel Rivera, Orphan Ahwak (Orca Book Publishers)- more
QWF Translation Prize (French and English, with target language alternating each
Lori Saint-Martin and Paul Gagné, Big Bang (Les Allusifs), a translation of Neil Smith’s Bang Crunch (Knopf Canada)- more
Hugh MacLennan Prize for FictionRawi Hage, Cockroach (House of Anansi Press) ISBN: 9780887842092 One of the most highly anticipated novels of the year, Cockroach is as urgent, unsettling, and brilliant as Rawi Hage's bestselling and critically acclaimed first book, De Niro's Game. The novel takes place during one month of a bitterly cold winter in Montreal's restless immigrant community, where a self-described "thief" has just tried but failed to commit suicide by hanging himself from a tree in a local park. Rescued against his will, the narrator is obliged to attend sessions with a well-intentioned but naïve therapist. This sets the story in motion, leading us back to the narrator's violent childhood in a war-torn country, forward into his current life in the smoky émigré cafés where everyone has a tale, and out into the frozen night-time streets of Montreal, where the thief survives on the edge, imagining himself to be a cockroach invading the lives of the privileged, but willfully blind, citizens who surround him. Like De Niro's Game, Cockroach combines an uncompromising vision of humanity with razor-sharp portraits of society's outsiders, and a startling, poetic sensibility with bracing jolts of dark humour. He is a writer, a visual artist, and a curator. His writings have appeared in Fuse Magazine, Mizna, Jouvert, The Toronto Review, Montreal Serai, and Al-Jadid. His visual works have been shown in galleries and museums around the world including the Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Musée de la civilisation de Québec. Rawi's debut novel, De Niro's Game (2006), was a finalist for numerous prestigious national and international awards, and rights to the book have been sold around the world. Rawi Hage resides in Montreal. Quill & Quire Amazon.ca | Abe Books Canada | Chapters.Indigo.ca |
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Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-FictionTaras Grescoe, Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood (HarperCollins Canada)- ISBN- 1596912251 / 1-59691-225-1Taras Grescoe has gone fishing in the world's oceans and rivers, and he's caught a big one - several of them in fact. In his epicurean and ethically driven quest for the perfect seafood dish, Grescoe nets some shocking discoveries about the fish we eat, where they come from and the often slimy inner workings of the multi-billion dollar industry that depends on them. Bottomfeeder is designed, menu-style, as an account of Grescoe's globe-trotting, seafood-eating journey. He takes us from the familiar - a deep-fried visit to a Red Lobster franchise in North Carolina, where he chows down on popcorn-battered shrimp laced with chemicals, imported as local Gulf shrimp trawlers sat idle - to the foreign, such as a stay in Kochi, India, where Grescoe discovers how the curry-simmered fish and prawns he is enjoying have actually contributed to unprecedented ecological and social devastation, including playing a role in the 2005 tsunami disaster. Along the way, in a fork-to-fishing-line discourse, he tours the world's largest fish market with a marine biologist, takes celebrity chefs to task for putting threatened species on the menu and partakes in a few once-in-a-lifetime meals guaranteed to shock - and even kill - the palate. Much more than a screed against an often slippery fishing industry, however, Bottomfeeder is a food lover's highly entertaining and provocative delight, written by an intrepid adventurer who loves to dish on what's delicious, exciting and ethically digestible. Amazon.ca | Abe Books Canada | Chapters.Indigo.ca |
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A. M. Klein Prize for PoetryPeter Richardson, Sympathy for the Couriers (Véhicule Press)- ISBN: 1550652346 / 1-55065-234-6) Sympathy for the Couriers is a collection of messages from the border region of our livesthat vast allegorized territory of cheap self-deceptions and illusions. By turns comical and grim, these new poems feature Peter Richardson at his most ventriloquistic. The couriers in question are the banged-up, long-suffering, Dantesque voices who, speaking through the poet, deliver their news: heartfelt, often heartbreaking admissions that, nonetheless, are always buoyant with aphoristic brio and panache. But the most important messenger here is Richardson himself, who having establishing a reputation as one Canadas best poets, has given us his most challenging book. Peter Richardson's poems have appeared in many Canadian and American publications. His first book, A Tinkers' Picnic (Signal Editions/Véhicule), was nominated for the Gerald Lampert Award in 1999. For over twenty-four years Peter Richardson has been employed as an airport ramp worker, first at Mirabel, and then Dorval. He lives in Montreal. Amazon.ca | Abe Books Canada | Chapters.Indigo.ca |
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McAuslan First Book PrizeAdam Gollner, The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession (Doubleday Canada) (ISBN: 9780743296946) Journalist Gollner's debut is a rollicking account of the world of fruit and fruit fanatics. He's traveled to many countries in search of exotic fruits, and he describes in sensuous detail some of the hundreds of varieties he's sampled, among them peanut butter fruit, blackberry-jam fruit and coco-de-mer—a suggestively shaped coconut known as the lady fruit that grows only in the Seychelles. Equally intriguing are some of the characters he has encountered—a botanist in Borneo who spends his life studying malodorous durians; fruitarians who believe that a fruit diet promotes transcendental experiences; fruitleggers who bypass import laws; and fruit inventors such as the fabricator of the Grapple—which looks like an apple and tastes like a grape. The FDA and the often dubious activities of the international fruit trade, multinational corporations like Chiquita, come in for scrutiny, as does New York City's largest wholesale produce market, in a chapter with more information than one may want on biochemical growth inhibitors, hormone-based retardants, dyes, waxes and corrupt USDA inspectors. Gollner's passion for fruit is infectious, and his fascinating book is a testament to the fact that there is much more to the world of fruit than the bland varieties on our supermarket shelves. (May)  | back to top
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QWF Prize for Children's & Young Adult LiteratureRaquel Rivera, Orphan Ahwak (Orca Book Publishers) ISBN: 9781551436531 'A hunter knows he is never alone.’ She had heard Father say that once. Aneze looked into the trees. She spoke out loud to the bush. ‘There’s always you, Chickadee,’ she said to the small birds skittering above. ‘And if I stare long enough at the sky, I’ll see you, Eagle, circling with your wife. You will show me where Rabbit and Vole are hiding. And nearby in the stream, you are swimming, Jackfish. And you, Beaver, you are working on your house.’ ‘You see,’ Aneze told the woods. ‘I’m not alone at all.’ Aneze, a young aboriginal girl, is left for dead after her village is ripped apart by a wife-raid; her father and brother are killed and her mother is kidnapped. Aneze is the only survivor. She renames herself Orphan Ahwak as she struggles to survive on her own, first in the forest and then in a remote world of tundra and sea-ice. She endures cold and hunger and befriends people whose customs are completely foreign to her. Through it all she remains determined to become a hunter and to find a place in an often hostile and terrifying world. Raquel Rivera is a writer and artist who has written three children’s books. She has lived in Barcelona, Singapore and Kuala Lumpur but now makes her home in Montreal, Quebec, with her husband and two children. Reviews | back to top
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Lori Saint-Martin and Paul Gagné, Big Bang (Les Allusifs), a translation of Neil Smith’s Bang Crunch (Knopf Canada [original English version left] Dans ce remarquable premier recueil, des manifestations inattendues d’humour et de tendresse forment un univers fantasque. Écrites dans une prose incisive et limpide, les huit nouvelles qui le composent convient le lecteur à une exploration du besoin qu’ont les hommes et les femmes de nouer des liens, aussi ténus soient-ils, et peu importe ce qu’il en coûte. Nous faisons la connaissance d’un groupe de soutien aux personnes atteintes d’une tumeur bénigne qui croient leur humilité responsable de la maladie qui bourgeonne en eux. Il est question d’une jeune fille atteinte du syndrome de Fred Hoyle, dont l’âge se contracte et se dilate suivant les fluctuations de l’univers. Une veuve de fraîche date s’entretient avec les cendres de son mari, enchâssées dans une pierre de curling… Mettant en scène la tristesse, la foi, l’amour et le bonheur avec intelligence et une exquise subtilité, Neil Smith rend habilement compte de la condition humaine. About the English Edition An audacious New Face of Fiction debut: nine riveting stories that announce a major writer in the tradition of Yann Martel and Barbara Gowdy. |
Quebec Writers’ Federation Literary Awards 2008 shortlisted titles
A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry ($2,000):
- Joshua Auerbach, Radius of Light (DC Books)
- Katia Grubisic, What if Red Ran Out (Goose Lane Editions)
- Peter Richardson, Sympathy for the Couriers (Véhicule Press) - Winner
Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction ($2,000):
- Adam Gollner, The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession (Doubleday Canada)
- Taras Grescoe (left), Bottomfeeder: How to Eat Ethically in a World of Vanishing Seafood (HarperCollins Canada)- Winner
- Byron Rempel, No Limits: The Amazing Life Story of Rhona and Rhoda Wurtele, Canada’s Olympian Skiing Pioneers (Twinski Publications)
McAuslan First Book Prize ($2,000):- Adam Gollner, The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession (Doubleday Canada)- Winner
- Liane Keightley, Seven Openings of the Head (Conundrum Press)
- Saleema Nawaz, Mother Superior (Freehand Books)
Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction ($2,000):
- Rawi Hage, Cockroach (House of Anansi Press)- Winner
- Andrew Hood, Pardon Our Monsters (Véhicule Press)
- Jaspreet Singh (right), Chef (Véhicule Press)
Translation Prize, English to French ($2,000):
Hélène Rioux (left), Les artistes de la mémoire (XXY éditeur), a translation of Jeffrey Moore’s The Memory Artists (Penguin Canada)- Lori Saint-Martin and Paul Gagné, Big Bang (Les Allusifs), a translation of Neil Smith’s Bang Crunch (Knopf Canada)- Winner
- Sophie Voillot, Parfum de poussière (Alto), a translation of Rawi Hage’s De Niro’s Game (House of Anansi Press)
QWF Prize for Children’s and Young Adult Literature ($2,000):
- Anne Renaud, Pier 21: Stories from Near and Far (Lobster Press)
- Raquel Rivera, Orphan Ahwak (Orca Book Publishers)
- Raquel Rivera, Tuk and the Whale (Groundwood Books)
The QWF will present another new award this year, the Carte Blanche Prize (worth $250), to the year's best submission to the QWF’s online literary magazine, carte blanche, as determined by the publication’s editorial board.
Translation Prize ($2000)- Sponsored by Pierre Lapointe
Lazer Lederhendler, The Immaculate Conception, House of Anansi Press
a translation of L'Immaculée conception BY de Gaétan Soucy, Les Éditions du Boréal
Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction ($2000) Sponsored by Champlain, Dawson, Heritage, John Abbott, and Vanier Colleges
Julie Barlow & Jean-Benoît Nadeau, The Story of French, Knopf Canada
McAuslan First Book Prize ($2,000), Sponsored by McAuslan Brewing Inc
Neil Smith, Bang Crunch, Knopf Canada
A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry ($2000), Sponsored in memory of Sydney Weisbord
David Solway, Reaching for Clear: The Poetry of Rhys Savarin, Véhiclue Press
Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction ($2000) Sponsored by Paragraphe Bookstore
Heather O'Neill, Lullabies for Little Criminals, HarperCollins Publishers
Community Award
André Vanasse
