Five Canadian authors nominated for inaugural Carol Shields prize for fiction

Canadian novelist Suzette Mayr has been nominated for the the inaugural Carol Shields Prize for Fiction for her book, The Sleeping Car Porter, which also won the Scotiabank Giller Prize.Leah Hennel/The Globe and Mail

Five Canadian authors have made the long list for the inaugural Carol Shields Prize for Fiction, one of North America’s most valuable literary prizes, which celebrates the work of female and non-binary writers.

The nominees include Calgary’s Suzette Mayr for The Sleeping Car Porter. Mayr also won the 2022 Scotiabank Giller Prize for the same novel, which is her sixth. Published by Coach House Books, it explores the life of a queer Black porter in the 1920s who wishes to be a dentist, but instead must cross the country in a train filled with white passengers.

Francine Cunningham, an indigenous writer born and raised in Alberta whose previous book of poems has been nominated for a BC & Yukon Book Prize, an Indigenous Voices Award and the City of Vancouver Book Award, is nominated for her short-story collection God Isn’t Here Today (Invisible Publishing).

Also nominated is Chelene Knight, whose novel Junie (Book*hug Press) navigates 1930s life in Vancouver’s Hogan’s Alley; the Canadian-born, U.K.-based Emma Hooper for the novel We Should Not Be Afraid of the Sky (Penguin Canada), exploring the lives of five sisters in the Roman Empire; and Tsering Yangzom Lama, whose Giller-shortlisted We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies (McClelland & Stewart) explores colonization, family and relationships with land through the stories of Tibetan exiles.

Fifteen Canadian and U.S. authors were named to the long list of finalists Wednesday; five shortlisted winners will be announced April 6. Finalists will each take home a US$12,500 prize, while the winner, who will receive US$150,000 and a residency at the Fogo Island Inn, will be announced May 4 in Nashville.

The Shields Prize was first announced in 2020 with the goal of boosting the prominence and financial success of female and non-binary writers, who face numerous structural barriers. The Writers’ Union of Canada has estimated that female writers earn only 55 per cent of what their male counterparts do.

The prize is named for Carol Shields, the Illinois-born writer who moved to Canada at age 22 and who earned numerous literary awards including the Governor-General’s Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Her work extended through novels, short stories, non-fiction books, poetry, plays and more. She was named a Companion of the Order of Canada in 2002, shortly before her death.

The jury for this year’s prize includes Anita Rau Badami, Merilyn Simonds, Monique Truong, katherena vermette and Crystal Wilkinson, who selected the long list from a pool of more than 250 books published in 2022.

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