Calgary author wins Governor General's award

Calgary writer Andrew Nikiforuk has won the 2002 Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction for his book: Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig's War Against Big Oil.

The prize was announced Tuesday in Toronto.

"It is an amazing tale," says Nikiforuk. "We have a Shakespearean character at the centre of it; a man trying to defend his family, who starts off simply and then forcibly begins to press issues, with tragic consequences."

Nikiforuk's study of Wiebo Ludwig has already won the W.O. Mitchell City of Calgary Book Prize, and the 2002 Arthur Ellis Award for Best True Crime Book.

Nikiforuk has won five National Magazine Awards, the Atkinson Fellowship in Public Policy, and top honours from the Association of Canadian Journalists.

One of his books - School's Out: The Catastrophe in Public Education and What Parents Can Do About It, was a national bestseller.

Meanwhile, another Alberta writer, Gloria Sawai of Edmonton, won the fiction prize for her collection of short stories: A Song for Nettie Johnson.

The awards will be presented by Governor General Adrienne Clarkson at a ceremony in Ottawa on Nov. 19.