After coming close but failing to win the 2010 Man Booker Prize in London last month, Irish-Canadian novelist Emma Donoghue made good in Toronto on Tuesday night by taking the $25,000 Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize for Room, her internationally bestselling novel narrated by a five-year-old boy born in a dungeon where his mother is kept as a sex slave.
“Donoghue’s harrowing, stunningly crafted Room gripped this jury from the very first page and refused to let go,” the three-member panel that awarded the prize declared.
Other finalists for the fiction prize were Trevor Cole for Practical Jean, Michael Helm for Cities of Refuge, Kathleen Winter for Annabel and her brother, Michael Winter, for The Death of Donna Whalen.
Last night’s other big winner was Toronto author James Fitzgerald for What Disturbs Our Blood: A Son’s Quest to Redeem the Past, awarded the $25,000 Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize. Fitzgerald’s memoir of a troubled inheritance prevailed over Ross King’s Defiant Spirits, Sarah Leavitt’s Tangles, John and Mary Theberge’s The Ptarmigan’s Dilemma and Merrily Weisbord’s The Love Queen of Malabar.
Donoghue’s victory on the fiction side highlights the diversity of Canadian novels nominated as best of breed in 2010 – especially the fact that Room, a finalist for the prestigious Man Booker Prize, failed to show on the lists of best novels selected by juries for either the Giller Prize or the Governor-General’s Literary Awards.
Although slipping on British sales charts after a summer at the top, Room is currently No. 19 on The New York Times bestseller lists as well as No. 13 on Amazon’s list of most popular titles sold for its Kindle reader. Despite its macabre subject matter, the Writers’ Trust jury noted, Room “is not a horror story or tearjerker, but a celebration of resilience and the love between parent and child.”
Other prizes awarded in Toronto last night include the $25,000 Marian Engel Prize, awarded to a Canadian writer in mid-career for an entire body of work. It went to Manitoba-born Miriam Toews, former winner of the 2008 Roger’s Writers’ Trust award for her novel The Flying Troutmans. The $20,000 Matt Cohen Award, also given for a body of work to a writer “dedicated to writing as a primary pursuit,” went to Edmonton’s Myrna Kostash. Polly Horvath won the $20,000 Vicky Metcalf Award for children’s literature, while journalist John Macfarlane was recognized for his long support of the Writers’ Trust.
A charitable organization that supports Canadian writers with a number of projects, the group distributed a total of $147,000 in prizes at its 10th annual awards, making it one of the richest and most influential events of the season.
