Cliff Cardinal, Emma Healey and Madhur Anand among finalists for 2023 Trillium Book Awards

Cliff Cardinal, Emma Healey and Madhur Anand are among the finalists for the 2023 Trillium Book Awards presented by Ontario Creates.

Established in 1987, the prize annually recognizes the best book and best poetry collection from writers in Ontario.  

The winners in both the English and French categories of the Trillium Book Award will receive $20,000, while the winner of the poetry category will receive $10,000. This year, the category for best book of children's literature in French will also be awarded.

Cliff Cardinal is nominated in the best book category for his play William Shakespeare's As You Like It, A Radical Retelling.

William Shakespeare's As You Like It, A Radical Retelling, also performed at the Mirvish theatre as The Land Acknowledgement, or As You Like It, subverts expectations of the Bard's classic tale from an Indigenous perspective. Cardinal reflects on Canada's relationship with Indigenous communities through a reimaging of a humourous and emotional tale.

• Cliff Cardinal on why you should read Tomson Highway's play The Rez Sisters

Cardinal is a playwright and actor born on the Pine Ridge Reservation. His work has been recognized with the Buddies in Bad Times Vanguard Award for Risk and Innovation, the RBC Tarragon Emerging Playwright Award and the Reveal Indigenous Arts Award. Cardinal has also written a play called Huff & Stitch.

LISTEN | Cliff Cardinal on his confrontational play on Q with Tom Power: 

Q20:41Cliff Cardinal on his confrontational play The Land Acknowledgement, or As You Like It

Playwright Cliff Cardinal on subverting the audience’s expectations, and laughing in the face of trauma. 

Emma Healey is also nominated under the best book category for her memoir Best Young Woman Job Book .

Healey's memoir is a collection of essays documenting the many odd jobs she partook in while trying to make it as a writer. From her teenage years into young adulthood, Healey reflects on her experiences within a gig economy as a freelance essayist, research assistant, university student and more.

• The song Emma Healey couldn't get out of her head

Healey is a Toronto-based writer. Her poetry, essays and stories have appeared in The Fader, Hazlitt, the Hairpin, the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and The Walrus, among many others. She published her first book of poetry in 2012 called Begin With the End in Mind. Her second, Stereoblind, was published in 2018.

Madhur Anand's poetry collection Parasitic Oscillations is nominated for the Trillium Book Award for poetry.

Anand's second collection of poetry is a synthesis of the arts and sciences through the poet's own work in ecology as well as North American and Indian cultures. Parasitic Oscillations uses A.O. Hume's 1889 text,The Nests and Eggs of Indian Birds to analyze complex relationships amidst unprecedented ecological collapse. Birds become more than the subjects of metaphor in a variety of forms including lyrical and found poetry.

• Madhur Anand uses science and poetry to write about her parents' experiences in India

Madhur Anand is a poet and professor of ecology at the University of Guelph. She is the author of the A New Index for Predicting Catastrophes and This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart, which won the 2020 Governor General's Literary Award for nonfiction.

LISTEN | Madhur Anand in conversation with Shelagh Rogers on The Next Chapter: 

The Next Chapter2:21Madhur Anand on This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart: A Memoir in Halves,

Madhur Anand on her experimental memoir, This Red Line Goes Straight to Your Heart: A Memoir in Halves.

"The 2023 Trillium Book Award finalists are shining examples of the breadth of talent across the province; Ontario's authors enrich our national literary landscape. The book publishing industry is a key driver of Ontario's economic growth, and each year the Trillium Book Awards present an ideal opportunity to discover new writers and support local businesses," said Aaron Campbell, Chair of Ontario Creates.

The full shortlists for the 2023 Trillium Awards are below.

Trillium Book Award:

• Cobalt by Charlie Angus
• William Shakespeare's As You Like It, A Radical Retelling by Cliff Cardinal
• The Book of Grief and Hamburgers by Stuart Ross
• All the Shining People by Kathy Friedman
• Best Young Woman Job Book by Emma Healey

Trillium Book Award for Poetry:

• Parasitic Oscillations by Madhur Anand
• Fast Commute by Laurie D. Graham
• My Grief, the Sun by Sanna Wani

Prix Trillium:

• Circé des hirondelles by Gilles Lacombe
• dire by Andrée Lacelle
• Feux du naufrage by Gilles Latour
• Frontières libres by Marie-Thé Morin
• Capharnaüm by Nancy Vickers

Prix du livre d'enfant Trillium:

• Dany à la dérive by Pierre-Luc Bélanger
• Le secret de Paloma by Michèle Laframboise
• Mégane et Mathisby by Hélène Koscielniak

The winners will be announced on June 20, 2023.

Last year's winners included Ann Shin for her debut novel The Last Exiles and Bardia Sinaee for his poetry collection Intruder. 

Previous Trillium Award winners include Margaret Atwood, Dionne Brand and Alice Munro.