Prairie book wins Writers’ Trust
Saskatchewan writer Candace Savage is the winner of the 2012 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction for A Geography of Blood: Unearthing Memory from a Prairie Landscape.
The prize, with a $60,000 purse, is the richest annual literary award for a book of nonfiction published in Canada.
“I’m stirred but not shaken,” Savage said minutes after receiving the award.
“This seems to be the right moment for this story. People seem to have found it quite easily. I know I’m not the first person to tell this story, but now it seems people are ready to listen.
“The most heartening thing for me is
“I’m stirred but not shaken.” CANDACE SAVAGE AUTHOR OF A GEOGRAPHY OF BLOOD
that my book seems to have resonated with the jury.”
Savage’s book is a melding of memoir, history, geological survey, lament for and indictment of the settlement of the Western Plains and the myths of our past. It was selected by the jury over nominees Kamal Al-Solaylee ( Intolerable: A Memoir of Extremes); Modris Eksteins ( Solar Dance: Genius, Forgery, and the Crisis of Truth in the Modern Age); Taras Grescoe ( Straphanger: Saving Our Cities and Ourselves from the Automobile); and JJ Lee ( The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit).
AGeography of Blood is published by Greystone Books, an imprint of the venerable Canadian publishing house Douglas & McIntyre, which filed for bankruptcy protection two weeks ago, while its owners seek a buyer.
The irony is not lost on Savage, who remarked, “It’s odd to see this book getting so much attention in the middle of a shipwreck.
“None of us expects to get rich writing books, but any successful writer needs readers. And I hope that by winning this prize, the book finds its way to more of them.”
The prize was awarded by Hilary M. Weston in Toronto’s Koerner Hall, located in the Telus Centre for Performance and Learning. The event was hosted by Albert Schultz, the founding artistic director of Soulpepper Theatre Company.
The five nominated titles will be available in more than 200 Loblaw banner stores nation- wide. Last year’s Writers’ Trust Nonfiction Prize went to Charles Foran for Mordecai: The Life & Times.