André Alexis, Kamal Al-Solaylee among finalists for 2017 Trillium Book Award

Image | André Alexis and Kamal Al-Solaylee

Caption: André Alexis and Kamal Al-Solaylee are two of the six authors shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award. (Zoe Davison/Gary Gould)

The shortlist for the 2017 Trillium Book Award has been announced. Six titles are vying for the $20,000 prize, which recognizes excellence in writing by authors in Ontario.
André Alexis, whose novel Fifteen Dogs took home the 2017 Scotiabank Giller Prize and won Canada Reads 2017, has made the list for The Hidden Keys. Fifteen Dogs and The Hidden Keys are the second and third books of a planned five-book series by Alexis.
Journalist and professor Kamal Al-Solaylee made the shortlist for Brown, a work of nonfiction that explores what it means to be brown in today's world. Al-Solaylee's previous book, Intolerable, was a finalist for Canada Reads in 2014 and for the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Nonfiction Prize in 2012.
The other finalists are:
  • For All the Men (and Some of the Women) I've Known by Danila Botha
  • Waiting for the Cyclone by Leesa Dean
  • Throaty Wipes by Susan Holbrook
  • The Sweetest One by Melanie Mah
The finalists for the $10,000 Trillium Book Award for Poetry were also announced. They are:
  • Settler Education: Poems by Laurie D. Graham
  • Yes or Nope by Meaghan Strimas
  • A Mingus Lullaby by Dane Swan
This is the 30th year of the Trillium Book Awards. Kevin Hardcastle won in 2016 for his short story collection Debris. Other past winners include Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, Thomas King, and Michael Ondaatje.
The winners will be announced on June 20, 2017.