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The Sensibilities of Dogs by Antoinette Bekker

CBC Books | Posted: September 12, 2024 2:00 PM | Last Updated: September 12

The Albertan writer is on the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist

Image | Antoinette Bekker

Caption: Antoinette Bekker is a writer from Alberta. (Adore’ Photography)

Antoinette Bekker has made the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize longlist for The Sensibilities of Dogs.
The winner of the 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts(external link), a two-week writing residency at Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity(external link) and have their work published on CBC Books(external link). The four remaining finalists will each receive $1,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts(external link) and have their work published on CBC Books(external link).
The shortlist will be announced on Sept. 19 and the winner will be announced on Sept. 26.
If you're interested in the CBC Literary Prizes(external link), the 2025 CBC Short Story Prize is open for submissions until Nov. 1. The 2025 CBC Nonfiction Prize will open in January and the 2025 CBC Poetry Prize will open in April.

About Antoinette Bekker

Antoinette Bekker is an emerging writer from Alberta and enrolled in an MFA in Fiction at the University of King's College. She has written two novels with a satirical bent and is working on a short story collection. Her work has been longlisted, honourably mentioned and provincially awarded since she started writing four years ago. Her experiences as an immigrant and her profession as a psychiatrist inform her writing. She shares her life with two saintly horses, two very, very naughty dogs, and one husband.

Entry in five-ish words

"A violent invasion and costly losses."

The essay's source of inspiration

"I wrote the essay during the tumultuous times of the pandemic when, confronted by the vagaries of life, I considered the tenuous grip the human condition has on its reality. Memories were triggered and The Sensibilities of Dogs resulted from this introspection on the fragmentation of memory, person and place following traumatic loss."

First lines

In 2005, we drank yeasty Prosecco so dry our mouths puckered. We had passed our Master of Medicine exams and celebrated our future. Private practice or academia? Jack wanted to teach; I dreamt of a doctorate.
It was cold and rainy outside our house in suburban Johannesburg. Frost nipped at the last of the season's African Lilies. That year, they bloomed with purple abundance and refused to let go when winter came knocking. They clung to the extravagance of summer and concocted a perfume with asters, hibiscus and honeysuckle.
They ended up dead that winter's night.

Image | CBC Nonfiction Prize

Caption: The 2024 CBC Nonfiction Prize shortlist will be announced on Sept. 19 and the winner will be announced on Sept. 26. (Ben Shannon/CBC)

Check out the rest of the longlist

The longlist was selected from more than 1,400 submissions. A team of 12 writers and editors from across Canada compiled the list.
The jury selects the shortlist and the eventual winner from the readers' longlisted selections. This year's jury is composed of Michelle Good, Dan Werb and Christina Sharpe.
The complete longlist is:

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