Katherena Vermette's The Break takes home 3 prizes at Manitoba Book Awards
Jane van Koeverden | CBC | Posted: May 8, 2017 3:37 PM | Last Updated: July 5, 2017
Katherena Vermette won three prizes, totalling $13,500, at the Manitoba Book Awards, for her debut novel The Break.
The Manitoba Book Awards annually honour books written by Manitobans.
The Break, which was a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, Governor General's Literary Award for fiction and a contender on Canada Reads 2017, follows an Indigenous community in Winnipeg in the aftermath of a violent sexual assault.
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The Break was awarded the Margaret Laurence Award for fiction, Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award and the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award.
Vermette wasn't the only writer to walk away with multiple awards. Two of David Alexander Robertson's books received honours. His graphic novel Will I See?, illustrated by GMB Chomichuk with cover design by Relish New Brand Experience and based on a story by IsKwé and Erin Leslie, won a Manuela Dias Book Design and Illustration Award.
As well, his children's book When We Were Alone, illustrated by Julie Flett, won a McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award in the younger category. Stephanie Trombly won the older category with her book Trouble Makes a Comeback.
Robertson also co-won the Beatrice Mosionier Aboriginal Writer of the Year Award with Trevor Greyeyes.
Angeline Schellenberg's Tell Them It Was Mozart was another big winner, taking home the $1,000 Lansdowne Prize for Poetry, $2,500 John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer and $2,000 Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book.
The $3,500 Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Nonfiction went to Naamiwan's Drum by Maureen Matthews.