Rawi Hage, Paige Cooper among finalists for 2018 Quebec Writers' Federation literary awards
CBC Books | Posted: July 13, 2017 6:18 PM | Last Updated: February 28, 2019
Rawi Hage and Paige Cooper are among the finalists for the 2018 QWF Literary Awards.
The awards program, administered by The Quebec Writers' Federation, honours English-language writers from Quebec in seven categories. The 2018 winners in each category will receive $3,000.
Hage and Cooper are on the shortlist for the QWF's Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for fiction, for the novel Beirut Hellfire Society and the short story collection Zolitude, respectively. Joining them on the list is Eliza Robertson for her novel Demi-Gods.
Beirut Hellfire Society is on the shortlist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize. Both Beirut Hellfire Society and Zolitude were on the longlist for the 2018 Scotiabank Giller Prize and are currently finalists for the 2018 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction.
Policing Black Lives by Robyn Maynard scored two nominations: it's a finalist for the Concordia University First Book Prize and the Mavis Gallant Prize for nonfiction. The book looks at the underreported history of racial injustice in Canada.
The awards ceremony will include the announcement of the the winner of the 3Macs carte blanche Prize, which is awarded in recognition of an outstanding submission by a Quebec writer, artist or translator, and the 2019 CBC/QWF writer-in-residence.
The event will also unveil the 2018 winner of the $1,000 QWF Literary Prize for Young Writers, which is given to a young Quebec writer between the ages of 16 and 24 for a work of any genre published in English in a literary publication.
See the complete list of finalists of each category below. The winners will be announced on Nov. 20, 2018.
The Paragraphe Hugh MacLennan Prize for fiction:
- Zolitude by Paige Cooper
- Beirut Hellfire Society by Rawi Hage
- Demi-Gods by Eliza Robertson
The Concordia University First Book Prize:
- Zolitude by Paige Cooper
- Policing Black Lives by Robyn Maynard
- Excitement Tax by John Emil Vincent
The A.M. Klein Prize for poetry:
The QWF Prize for Playwriting:
- Sperm Count by Stephen Orlov
- Paradise Lost by Erin Shields
- When Memories Have Us by Paul Van Dyck
- Truth and Treason by Rahul Varma
The Mavis Gallant Prize for nonfiction:
- Policing Black Lives by Robyn Maynard
- Sitting Shiva on Minto Avenue by Erín Moure
- In Praise of Blood by Judi Rever
The QWF Prize for children's and young adult literature:
- The Big Bed by Bunmi Laditan, illustrated by Tom Knight
- That's Not Hockey by Andrée Poulin, illustrated by Félix Girard
- Mr. Crum's Potato Predicament by Anne Renaud, illustrated by Felicita Sala
The Cole Fondation Prize for translation — English to French:
- The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O'Neill, translated by Dominique Fortier
- The Dead of Winter by Peter Kirby, translated by Rachel Martinez
- Small Fires by Kelly Norah Drukker, translated by Lori Saint-Martin et Paul Gagné
- A Great Reckoning by Louise Penny, translated by Lori Saint-Martin et Paul Gagné