Clarisse Baleja Saïdi has made the 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for Guests, Ghosts, Hosts.

The winner of the 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and have the opportunity to attend a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.

The shortlist will be announced on Sept. 22 and the winner will be announced on Sept. 29.

If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2022 CBC Short Story Prize is open for submissions until Oct. 31.

Clarisse Baleja Saïdi is a Canadian writer born in Côte d'Ivoire to Rwandan Ugandan and Congolese parents. She holds an MFA from the University of Michigan's Helen Zell Writers' Program and a BA in English from Carleton University. She's received fellowship support from MacDowell, Yaddo, Hedgebrook, The Vermont Studio Center and more. She's also a 2021 Canada Council of the Arts grantee. Currently, Saïdi is working on a debut novel and an essay collection. Her short story Containers appeared in The Fiddlehead's 75th anniversary issue.

"Family, translation, the meaning of home."

"I wanted to remember home, which meant writing about my mother, about our migrations and about settling, in nearly every sense of the word. The exercise became the form, with home making and remaking at the forefront of it. A cycle, but with love at its core and self-discovery toward the essay's end.

"Translation is a 'carrying-across,' but our lives extend far beyond words, even when these are all we have. I wrote about words, about language and its social significance because these are a large part of the immigration experience — our bicultural blues, the expertise we acquire alongside language and how as new settlers we learn to say more with less especially when words feel haunted. I imagined what it might look like to compile my family's lexicography, a dictionary of experiences both specialized and achingly general. As is the case with much writing, the attempt itself helped me recall the unreliability of life and language, the power of understanding and the peace that awaits us when we move inward."

If memory is to be trusted, my first complication of the term 'home' came to me one night as I watched the evening news. Like any elementary school-aged child, age inconnu, I detested the news. I threw pitiable glances at any adult who insisted on the daily sermons.

I campaigned to change my parents' minds about the need to watch "les infos'' over, say, Lucky Luke or Les Schtroumphs, "They're blue," I exclaimed, a succinct explanation as to why the Smurfs, a 1980s gem of a show, made for better television. My parents seemed unmoved by my pleas.

The winner of the 2021 CBC Nonfiction Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and attend a two-week writing residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.

The 2022 CBC Short Story Prize is currently open for submissions until Oct. 31, 2021. The 2022 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January and the 2022 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April.