Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize
The winner
of this $50,000 prize is David Chariandy for
Brother.
Michael and Francis are the sons
of Trinidadian immigrants; their father has disappeared and their mother works
double, sometimes triple, shifts so her boys might fulfill the elusive promise
of their adopted home. Coming of age in
The Park, a cluster of town houses and leaning concrete towers in the
disparaged outskirts of a sprawling city, Michael and Francis battle against the
prejudices and low expectations that confront them as young men of black and
brown ancestry -- teachers stream them into general classes; shopkeepers see
them only as thieves; and strangers quicken their pace when the brothers are
behind them. Always Michael and Francis
escape into the cool air of the Rouge Valley, a scar of green wilderness that
cuts through their neighbourhood, where they are free to imagine better lives
for themselves. Propelled by the pulsing
beats and styles of hip hop, Francis, the older of the two brothers, dreams of
a future in music. Michael's dreams are
of Aisha, the smartest girl in their high school whose own eyes are firmly set
on a life elsewhere. But the bright
hopes of all three are violently, irrevocably thwarted by a tragic shooting,
and the police crackdown and suffocating suspicion that follow.
Go to http://www.writerstrust.com/Awards/Rogers-Writers--Trust-Fiction-Prize.aspx
for further information.
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National Book Award for Fiction
Jesmyn Ward
won for Sing, Unburied, Sing.
Jojo is
thirteen years old and trying to understand what it means to be a man. He
doesn’t lack in fathers to study, chief among them his Black grandfather, Pop.
But there are other men who complicate his understanding: his absent White
father, Michael, who is in prison; his absent White grandfather, Big Joseph,
who won’t acknowledge his existence; and the memories of his dead uncle, Given,
who died as a teenager. His mother,
Leonie, is an inconsistent presence in his and his toddler sister’s lives. She is an imperfect mother in constant
conflict with herself and those around her. She wants to be a better mother but can’t put
her children above her own needs, especially her drug use. Simultaneously
tormented and comforted by visions of her dead brother, which only come to her
when she’s high, Leonie is embattled in ways that reflect the brutal reality of
her circumstances. When the children’s
father is released from prison, Leonie packs her kids and a friend into her car
and drives north to the heart of Mississippi and Parchman Farm, the State
Penitentiary. At Parchman, there is
another thirteen-year-old boy, the ghost of a dead inmate who carries all of
the ugly history of the South with him in his wandering. He too has something
to teach Jojo about fathers and sons, about legacies, about violence, about
love.
I’ve just
finished reading this book. My review will be posted on December 5.
For further
information about the winners of the other National Book Awards, go to http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2017.html#.WhNQQzfavIV.
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Scotiabank Giller Prize
Michael
Redhill won this $100,000 prize for his novel Bellevue Square.
Jean Mason
has a doppelganger. She's never seen her, but others swear they have. Apparently,
her identical twin hangs out in Kensington Market, where she sometimes buys
churros and drags an empty shopping cart down the streets, like she's looking
for something to put in it. Jean's a grown woman with a husband and two kids,
as well as a thriving bookstore in downtown Toronto, and she doesn't rattle
easily—not like she used to. But after two customers insist they've seen her
double, Jean decides to investigate. She
begins at the crossroads of Kensington Market: a city park called Bellevue Square.
Although she sees no one who looks like her, it only takes a few visits to the
park for her to become obsessed with the possibility of encountering her twin
in the flesh. With the aid of a small army of locals who hang around in the
park, she expands her surveillance, making it known she'll pay for information
or sightings. A peculiar collection of drug addicts, scam artists,
philanthropists, philosophers and vagrants—the regulars of Bellevue Square—are
eager to contribute to Jean's investigation. But when some of them start
disappearing, she fears her alleged double has a sinister agenda. Unless Jean
stops her, she and everyone she cares about will face a fate much stranger than
death.
Go to http://www.scotiabankgillerprize.ca/and-the-2017-scotiabank-giller-prize-goes-to-michael-redhill/
for further information.
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