Other winners of Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize
Posted November 2, 2010 9:09 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
TORONTO _ After failing to nab the recent Man Booker Prize for fiction and getting shut out by the Scotiabank Giller Prize, the controversial and lauded novel “Room” by London, Ont.-based author Emma Donoghue has won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.
Told in the voice of a five-year-old boy who’s held captive in a garden shed with his mother, the bestselling book received the $25,000 honour at a downtown reception Tuesday night.
“Room” has made headlines around the world for its subject matter, which subtly echoes the case of Elisabeth Fritzl, an Austrian woman whose father was convicted last year of imprisoning her in a cellar and fathering her seven children.
Donoghue, 41, who was born in Dublin, has said that although the Fritzl case put the idea for “Room” into her mind, her novel is not about it.
“Room” has been a bestseller in Canada since its publication in September and has been trumpeted by publications including Oprah Winfrey’s O magazine and the New York Times.
Writers’ Trust jury members Lisa Moore, Andrew Pyper and Eden Robinson called the book “harrowing” and “stunningly crafted,” and said it “gripped this jury from the very first page and refused to let go.”
“Room” beat out four other titles for the Writers’ Trust prize, including “Annabel” by Montreal-based author Kathleen Winter, which is up for a Giller prize next Tuesday.
“Annabel” is also up for a Governor General’s Literary Award later this month, as is “Room.”
Other Writers’ Trust fiction finalists this year included “Cities of Refuge” by Toronto’s Michael Helm, “Practical Jean” from Trevor Cole of Hamilton, Ont., and “The Death of Donna Whalen” by Michael Winter, who is Kathleen Winter’s brother and lives in Toronto and St. John’s.
Each finalist receives $2,500.
Meanwhile, Toronto journalist James FitzGerald picked up the $25,000 Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize for “What Disturbs Our Blood: A Son’s Quest to Redeem the Past,” about his family secrets.
The other finalists were Ross King for “Defiant Spirits: The Modernist Revolution of the Group of Seven”; Sarah Leavitt for “Tangles: A Story About Alzheimer’s, My Mother and Me”; John Theberge and Mary Theberge for “The Ptarmigan’s Dilemma: An Exploration Into How Life Organizes and Supports Itself; and Merrily Weisbord for ”The Love Queen of Malabar: Memoir of a Friendship With Kamala Das.“
Each non-finalist also receives $2,500.
Devon Code, author of “Uncle Oscar,” won the Writers’ Trust of Canada/McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize, which recognizes the best short story or excerpt from a novel-in-progress by a new and developing writer that had its first publication in a Canadian literary journal in the previous year.
Acclaimed Winnipeg novelist Miriam Toews won the $25,000 Writers’ Trust Engel/Findley Prize for her mid-career for a body of work.
The $20,000 Vicky Metcalf Award for Children’s Literature went to Polly Horvath.
And creative non-fiction writer Myrna Kostash won the $20,000 Matt Cohen Award: In Celebration of a Writing Life.
The Writers’ Trust of Canada is a charitable organization that was founded by authors including Margaret Atwood and the late Pierre Berton, and awards almost $150,000 in various categories.
This is the first year that the prizes have been handed out before the Giller gala and Governor General’s Literary Awards.
