Author Awad claims prize for debut novel

Mona Awad has received top honours from the Amazon.ca First Novel Award. In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the award, the Montreal-born author received a $40,000 prize for her debut novel, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl (Penguin Canada), at a ceremony in Toronto Thursday. The prize was co-presented by Amazon and the Walrus Foundation. The award has a lengthy history honouring and helping start the careers of notable Canadian novelists, with past winners including Michael Ondaatje, W.P. Kinsella, Nino Ricci, Joseph Boyden and David Bezmozgis. The five other finalists — Elizabeth Philips, W. Mark Giles, Judith McCormack, Aaron Cully Drake and Karim Alrawi — each received $4,000.