Brown, King among non-fiction finalists

Five writers vie for $60,000 Weston prize

TORONTO — Ian Brown is among the five finalists in contention for this year’s $60,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Non-fiction.

The award-winning Torontobased author is being honoured for (Random House Canada). Brown, a feature writer for the

earned several accolades for his previous book, 2010’s which was awarded the Charles Taylor Prize, the Trillium Book Award and the B.C. National Award for Canadian Non-fiction.

Bestselling author King is nominated for (Bond Street Books/Doubleday Canada).

The Estevan, Sask.-born writer, who is based in the U.K., is a two-time winner of the Governor General’s Literary Award for Non-fiction for and

King was previously nominated for the 2010 Writers’ Trust Non-fiction Prize for

Vancouver-based journalist and author Deborah Campbell, who teaches at the University of British Columbia, is also in the running for (Knopf Canada). Award-winning writer Matti Friedman, who was born in Toronto and is in Jerusalem, for now based was recognized (Signal/ McClelland & Stewart). Rounding out the list of finalists is Vancouver-based Sonja Larsen for (Random House Canada).

Author and journalist Carolyn Abraham, journalism professor and author Stephen Kimber and non-fiction writer and folklorist Emily Urquhart are the jury members for this year’s prize.

The finalists were selected from 95 titles submitted by 50 publishers.

Billed as the richest annual literary award for a book of nonfiction published in Canada, the prize winner will receive a total of $60,000. Each finalist will receive $5,000.

Established in 1997, the prize is named after former Ontario lieutenant-governor Hilary Weston, who served in the role from 1997 to 2002.

The winner will be announced during a ceremony at Toronto’s Glenn Gould Studio on Nov. 2.