Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq has been nominated for the Amazon Canada First Novel Award for Split Tooth.Peter Power/The Canadian Press
Award-winning Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq is in line to add a lucrative literary prize to her list of accolades.
Tagaq’s debut “Split Tooth,” published by Viking Canada, is among the six books nominated for the $60,000 Amazon Canada First Novel Award.
Oji-Cree storyteller and academic Joshua Whitehead made the short list for “Jonny Appleseed” (Arsenal Pulp Press), which made the 2018 Giller Prize long list alongside “Split Tooth.”
Vancouver-based writer Ian Williams, who has also earned acclaim for his poetry, is in the running for “Reproduction,” published by Penguin Random House Canada.
Other contenders include Liz Harmer’s “The Amateurs” (Knopf Canada) and “Searching for Terry Punchout” (Invisible Publishing) by Tyler Hellard.
The prize is co-presented by Amazon and the Walrus Foundation.
In previous years, winners received $40,000, but this year’s grand prize has been upped to $60,000. Each finalist will receive $6,000.
The winner will be announced at a ceremony in Toronto on May 22.
Established in 1976, previous winners of the First Novel Award include Michael Ondaatje, W.P. Kinsella, Nino Ricci, David Bezmozgis, Andre Alexis and Madeleine Thien.