Aimee Wall and Dani Jansen among finalists for Quebec Writers' Federation Literary Awards
Aimee Wall, Dani Jansen, André Picard and Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch are four of the 22 authors and translators shortlisted for the 2021 QWF literary awards.
Established by the Quebec Writers' Federation in 1988, the QWF Literary Awards annually honour the best books published by English-language writers and translators in Quebec in six categories.
Wall's novel We, Jane is nominated for both the Concordia University First Book Prize and Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction.
In We, Jane, Wall explores rural existence, access to abortion, care work for women by women and the complex emotions of deciding to go home. The story follows a young woman named Marthe as she befriends an older woman, Jane, while living in Montreal. We, Jane was also longlisted for the 2021 Scotiabank Giller Prize.
Wall is a writer and translator from Newfoundland who now lives in Montreal. Her translations include Vickie Gendreau's novels Testament and Drama Queens.
- Aimee Wall explores care for women by women and rural access to abortion in her debut novel We, Jane
Jansen is shortlisted for the newly endowed Janet Savage Blachford Prize for Children's and Young Adult Literature for her YA book, The Year Shakespeare Ruined My Life.
In the book, Alison Green is a desperate Valedictorian-wannabe who makes two big mistakes — agreeing to produce her school's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and accidentally saying yes to a date with her oldest friend, Jack, even though she's crushing on Charlotte.
Jansen is a Montreal-based writer and teacher. The Year Shakespeare Ruined My Life is her first book.
Knot Body by El Bechelany-Lynch is also shortlisted for the Concordia University First Book Prize.
Knot Body brings together poetry, essay and letters to "lovers, friends and in-betweens." El Bechelany-Lynch confronts the ways capitalism, fatphobia, ableism, transness and racializations affect people with chronic pain, illness and disability.
El Bechelany-Lynch is a poet from Montreal. Their work has appeared in The Best Canadian Poetry, The Puritan and The New Quarterly. They were longlisted for the 2019 CBC Poetry Prize for Nancy Ajram Made Me Gay.
Neglected No More by Picard is a finalist for Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction.
Neglected No More is a look at how we came to embrace mass institutionalization and presents the necessary steps needed to improve the state of care for our elders. The book reflects on the horrific impact of COVID-19 as it spread through seniors' residences across Canada, which exposed the decades-old systemic neglect toward elders in our society. The book is also a finalist for the 2021 Balsillie Prize for Public Policy.
Picard is a health reporter and columnist for the Globe and Mail. He is a frequent guest on CBC programs such as The Current and The National.
LISTEN | André Picard discusses health care:
Below is the complete shortlist for this year's awards. The winner for each category will receive $3,000.
The Janet Savage Blachford Prize for Children's and Young Adult Literature is awarded in even-numbered years and recognizes a book for beginner readers, and in odd-numbered years to a book for middle grade or young adult readers.
The finalists this year are:
- The Year Shakespeare Ruined My Life by Dani Jansen
- Journal of a Travelling Girl by Nadine Neema
- Room for One More by Monique Polak
- Zee by Su J. Sokol
The First Book Prize is sponsored by Concordia University.
This year's finalists are:
- Knot Body by Eli Tareq El Bechelany-Lynch
- Ten Thousand Crossroads: The Path As I Remember It by Balfour M. Mount
- Fighting for a Hand to Hold: Confronting Medical Colonialism Against Indigenous Children in Canada by Samir Shaheen-Hussain
- We, Jane by Aimee Wall
The Cole Foundation Prize for Translation honours a English-French translator in even-numbered years and French-English translator in odd-numbered years.
The finalists this year are:
- Em by Kim Thúy, translated by Sheila Fischman
- I Am a Damn Savage; What Have You Done to My Country?, translated by Sarah Henzi from Je suis une Maudite sauvagesse; Qu'as-tu fait de mon pays? by An Antane Kapesh
- Orwell in Cuba: How 1984 Came to Be Published in Castro's Twilight, translated by Donald Winkler from Avant l'Après by Frédérick Lavoie
The finalists for A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry this year are:
- Because the Sun by Sarah Burgoyne
- Hell Light Flesh by Klara du Plessis
- The Fool by Jessie Jones
- I Am the Big Heart by Sarah Venart
The finalists for Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-fiction this year are:
- Peacekeeper's Daughter by Tanya Bellehumeur-Allatt
- Bent Out of Shape by Karen Messing
- Neglected No More by André Picard
- Music, Late and Soon by Robyn Sarah
- Fighting for a Hand to Hold by Samir Shaheen-Hussain
The Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction is sponsored by Librairie Paragraphe Bookstore in Montreal.
The 2021 finalists are:
- Love Like Water, Love Like Fire by Mikhail Iossel
- Songs for the End of the World by Saleema Nawaz
- We, Jane by Aimee Wall
- Undersong by Kathleen Winter
The winners will be announced on Wednesday, Nov. 24.
The Quebec Writers' Federation is a non-profit organization that aims to support, connect and inspire English writers in Quebec.
The 2020 winners included Dominoes at the Crossroads by Kaie Kellough, Possess the Air by Taras Grescoe and The Three Brothers by Marie-Louise Gay.
