TORONTO — Camilla Gibb's celebrated novel Sweetness in the Belly has picked up another honour — the Trillium Book Award.
The book, about a Muslim nurse who flees to England from Ethiopia, has already been feted with a Giller nomination.
Gibb said she was delighted to receive the latest accolade — which comes more than 12 months after the book's initial release by Doubleday Canada.
“A book continues to have a life and be part of a bigger dialogue and it's nice that a year after its original publication it's still part of the conversation,” she said.
Gibb, who has just spend the year as writer in residence at the University of Toronto, is planning to spend the summer working on a new novel.
Other nominated books were David Gilmour's A Perfect Night to Go to China, F.T. Flahiff for Always Someone to Kill the Doves, Sheila Heti for Ticknor, Stephen Lewis for Race Against Time and Alayna Munce for When I Was Young & in My Prime.
Award recipients receive $20,000 and their publishers get $2,500 to promote the winning titles.
The French-language winner was Jean Mohsen Fahmy for L'Agonie des dieux (Les Editions L'Interligne).
The Trillium Book Award for Poetry was given to Kevin Connolly for his collection, entitled drift (House of Anansi Press).
The winner in the French-language poetry category was Eric Charlebois for Centrifuge (Les Editions David).
The winner in the poetry categories gets $10,000, while publishers get $2,000 for promotion.
All short listed authors get a $500 honorarium.
The award, in its 19th year, is funded by the Ontario government.
