Christine Wunderli has made the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for Paper Nautilus. The shortlist will be announced on Sept. 14 and the winner will be announced on Sept. 21.

If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes, the 2024 CBC Short Story Prize is open for submissions.

Christine Wunderli was born in New Brunswick and raised in St. John's. She began journalling and story writing at a young age. She holds a PhD in Jewish Studies from the University of Lucerne. Her recent publication, Elie Wiesel, the Shtetl, and Post-Auschwitz Memory, examines the effects of severe trauma on language and memory. Time, education and relationships brought her to Switzerland, where she lived and worked for over 25 years. She repatriated to Canada two years ago and currently lives in St. John's. Paper Nautilus is Wunderli's first submission to a literary competition.

"Finding wholeness after sexual assault."

"Many years ago, while studying for ordained ministry, I was gravely violated by several evangelical Christian men I trusted. The road back from that violation has been circuitous and difficult. For most of my life since then, I held the crime close to me, unable to relinquish its dark secret out of fear and shame.

"Times have changed, though, and so have I. Yes, it's time.

"Paper Nautilus captures a crucial moment in a very complex, but quite remarkable journey towards wholeness and healing.

"My fortuitous 'encounter' with the French marine biologist Jeanne Villepreux-Power (1794-1871) and her elusive octopi Argonauta argo occurred at an important juncture in therapy. It's as if Mme Villepreux-Power were reaching out her hand to me, saying, 'You got this, Christine.'

"She nudged me to leap forwards into a new place inside myself. I did leap — and landed safely, here within, on solid ground.

"Paper Nautilus stands for my courage, and my sense of duty, and all my strength. It is my hope that it will encourage others to speak their truth, and to seek a balm for their wound."

I have never seen a paper nautilus, though I want to. I look at pictures on the Internet and in books. I look and look. I reach out my finger to touch the screen, or the page. I don't know why I look. There's an affinity, I guess.

"These are strange creatures," I say to myself.

*

"Paper nautilus." The colloquial name's a misnomer. They are not Nautilidae—mollusks with chambered shells attached to their corpus — nor do they sail, as so often thought. They are Argonautidae, small octopi that possess detached, single-chambered, paper-thin shells, and they are swimmers.

The winner of the 2023 CBC Nonfiction Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, have their work published on CBC Books and win a two-week writing residency at Artscape Gibraltar Point. Four finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts and have their work published on CBC Books.

The 2024 CBC Short Story Prize is currently open until Nov. 1, 2023 at 4:59 p.m. ET. The 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January 2024 and the 2024 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April 2024.