Off, Talaga up for Shaughnessy Cohen prize

Nominees vie for $25,000 award

Books by veteran journalists TORONTO who delved into uncomfortable truths about Indigenous youth and Afghan immigrants are among the finalists for a lucrative prize.

The shortlist for the $25,000 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing includes Tanya Talaga’s Seven Fallen Feathers: Racism, Death, and Hard Truths in a Northern City (House of Anansi Press). It won the $30,000 RBC Taylor Prize last month and was also a finalist for the $60,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for non-fiction, and the $40,000 British Columbia National Award for Canadian non-fiction. It traces the lives and tragic deaths of seven Indigenous high school students.

Carol Off ’s All We Leave Behind: A Reporter’s Journey into the Lives of Others (Random House Canada) looks at an Afghan family forced to flee to Canada after exposing a dangerous warlord. It won the B.C. prize and was a finalist for the $25,000 Governor General’s Literary Award for non-fiction and the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for non-fiction.

Others are Sandra Perron’s Out Standing in the Field: A Memoir by Canada’s First Female Infantry Officer (Cormorant Books); Ted Rowe’s Robert Bond: The Greatest Newfoundlander (Creative Book Publishing/Breakwater Books); and Christopher Dummitt’s Unbuttoned: A History of Mackenzie King ’s Secret Life (McGill- Queen’s University Press).

The winner will be announced May 9 in Ottawa.

The prize was established in 2000 in honour of the late Windsor, Ont., MP Shaughnessy Cohen.

The finalists were selected by a jury composed of University of Victoria professor of Indigenous governance Gerald Taiaiake Alfred, former Shaughnessy Cohen Prize winner and University of Toronto professor Joseph Heath, and political journalist and commentator Kady O’Malley.