2 Canadians win Lambda Literary Awards for best LGBTQ+ writing
CBC Books | Posted: June 20, 2023 8:38 PM | Last Updated: June 20, 2023
Danny Ramadan and Jeff Ho were among the recipients of the 25 awards
Two Canadian writers, Danny Ramadan and Jeff Ho were among the winners of the 2023 Lambda Literary Awards. The prizes, which recognize the best in queer writing across 25 categories including poetry, fiction, romance and more, were given out at a ceremony in New York.
Ramadan won the gay fiction category for his novel The Foghorn Echoes while Ho won the LGBTQ+ drama category for Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land).
The Lambda Literary Awards have celebrated LGBTQ storytelling for more than three decades.
More than 1,300 titles were submitted by 30 publishers for this year's awards. The finalists and winners were chosen by a panel of more than 65 professionals from the literary, book and publishing industries. Each category is judged by a team of three panellists.
Ramadan says the hardest year of his life was his first year as a refugee in Canada and adjusting to a new way of life. His novel The Foghorn Echoes echoes that sense of dislocation. Set in war-torn Syria in 2003, The Foghorn Echoes interweaves the stories of who two boys. They have feelings for one another and, when they act on them, their lives are changed forever. Ten years later, as they struggle to find peace and belonging, the past continues to reverberate for both men.
Ramadan is a Syrian Canadian author, public speaker and advocate for LGBTQ+ refugees. His debut novel, The Clothesline Swing, was shortlisted for the Lambda Literary Award and was longlisted for Canada Reads 2018. He has an MFA in creative writing from the University of British Columbia and currently lives in Vancouver with his husband.
LISTEN | Danny Ramadan discusses The Foghorn Echoes:
Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land) & Antigone: 方 won the award for LGBTQ+ drama.
Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land) & Antigone: 方 are two Ancient Greek adaptations led by people of colour that reimagine the stories for modern times.
Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land) highlights the repetition of hate and colonialism that occur in ancient myths through a mischievous lens. Since Iphigenia was rescued from the sacrificial altar, she has served as a high priestess to the goddess Artemis on Tauros, where she in turn is to sacrifice any foreigners who try to enter. When she discovers that an exiled prisoner is her brother, they together plot their escape, but are soon confronted by a force beyond their control.
Antigone: 方 takes place against the backdrop of the Hong Kong Umbrella Movement and Tiananmen Square Massacre protests. When citizens challenge the state, the ruling family is divided on who interests to prioritize: their own or the citizens. When brothers Neikes and Teo kill each other during the protests, their sister Antigone collects Neikes's body against the wishes of her father, setting off a chain of events that forces the family to reckon with their decisions.
Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land) and Antigone: 方 was also a finalist for the 2022 Governor General's Literary Award for drama.
Ho Ka Kei is a Toronto-based theatre artist, originally from Hong Kong.
Two of the other winners were published by Canadian presses: The Third Person by American writer Emma Grove won the transgender nonfiction category and was published by Montreal comics publisher Drawn & Quarterly while bisexual nonfiction winner Appropriate Behavior (Queer Film Classics Book 4) by American Maria San Filippo was published by McGill-Queen's University Press.
Ten Canadians were nominated for the 2023 awards, including Jen Ferguson for her YA novel The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, Maggie Horne for her middle-grade novel Hazel Hill Is Gonna Win This One and Natalie Wee for her poetry collection Beast at Every Threshold.
The complete list of 2023 winners is below.
- Lesbian fiction: Gods of Want by K-Ming Chang
- Lesbian poetry: As She Appears by Shelley Wong
- Lesbian memoir/biography: Lost & Found: A Memoir by Kathryn Schulz
- Lesbian romance: The Rules of Forever by Nan Campbell
- Gay fiction: The Foghorn Echoes by Danny Ramadan
- Gay poetry: Some Integrity by Padraig Regan
- Gay memoir/biography: High-Risk Homosexual: A Memoir by Edgar Gomez
- Gay romance: I'm So (Not) Over You by Kosoko Jackson
- LGBTQ+ nonfiction: The Black Period: On Personhood, Race, and Origin
Hafizah Augustus Geter - LGBTQ+ young adult: The Lesbiana's Guide to Catholic School by Sonora Reyes
- LGBTQ+ anthology: OutWrite: The Speeches That Shaped LGBTQ Literary Culture, edited by Julie R. Enszer and Elena Gross
- LGBTQ+ middle grade: Nikhil Out Loud by Maulik Pancholy
- LGBTQ+ children's books: Mighty Red Riding Hood by Wallace West
- LGBTQ+ comics: Mamo by Sas Milledge
- LGBTQ+ drama: Iphigenia and the Furies (On Taurian Land) & Antigone: 方 by Ho Ka Kei (Jeff Ho)
- LGBTQ+ romance & erotica: Kiss Her Once for Me by Alison Cochrun
- LGBTQ+ mystery: Dirt Creek: A Novel by Hayley Scrivenor
- LGBTQ+ speculative fiction: The Wicked and the Willing by Lianyu Tan
- LGBTQ+ studies: Keeping It Unreal: Black Queer Fantasy and Superhero Comics by Darieck Scott
- Bisexual fiction: Reluctant Immortals by Gwendolyn Kiste
- Bisexual nonfiction: Appropriate Behavior by Maria San Filippo
- Bisexual poetry: Real Phonies and Genuine Fakes by Nicky Beer
- Transgender fiction: The Call-Out by Cat Fitzpatrick
- Transgender nonfiction: The Third Person by Emma Grove
- Transgender poetry: MissSettl by Kamden Ishmael Hilliard