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Ottawa author Frances Itani and Globe and Mail columnist Kate Taylor were named winners yesterday of the prestigious Commonwealth Writers Prize.

Itani took the best book award for her novel, Deafening, a tale inspired by the author's own deaf grandmother. Taylor won the best first book award for her novel, Mme. Proust and the Kosher Kitchen. Reached yesterday at her home, Taylor said she was stunned and thrilled by the news.

"I found out this morning, and I was totally floored," says Taylor, who is on maternity leave from her position as arts columnist at The Globe. "My publisher [Doubleday]got one e-mail saying I'd been nominated, and another that I'd won.

"The novel received some nice reviews and I've had some readers tell me how much they enjoyed it, and how it touched them. But when you write, you're in isolation. You like to think what you're doing is important. But you wonder if others share your feelings."

In literature, Taylor added, there are three categories of recognition: the critics, readers and prizes. "Thus far, I'd found plenty in the first two, but not in the third," added Taylor. "This award is very gratifying."

Taylor and Itani, who each get £1,000 ($2,469), won the Caribbean/Canada category of the Commonwealth Prize. Previous winners include Olive Senior ( Summer Lightning, in 1987); Mordecai Richler, ( Solomon Gursky Was Here, 1990); Earl Lovelace ( Salt, 1997); Ann-Marie MacDonald ( Fall on Your Knees, 1997); Lawrence Scott ( Aelred's Sin, 1999); and Austin Clarke ( The Polished Hoe, 2003).

There were six other regional winners in 2004. In Africa, The Good Doctor by Damon Galgut won best book, and Gardening at Night, by Diane Awerbuck, took home the award for best debut novel. In Eurasia, A Distant Shore by Caryl Phillips won best book, and best first book went to Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. In Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, Michelle de Kretser's The Hamilton Case was named best book, while the first book prize was given to Somewhere, Home by Nada Awar Jarrar.

In May, the judges will pick an overall winner from among the eight regional recipients in the two categories. That ceremony is to be held in Melbourne, Australia. The best book prize is £10,000, with £3,000 for the best first book.

Mme. Proust and the Kosher Kitchen is a narrative that connects Marcel Proust's mother to a Montreal translator reading Mme. Proust's diaries to a Parisian refugee living in Toronto.

Deafening revolves around Grania, a young Irish immigrant to small-town Canada who loses her hearing after being struck by scarlet fever around the time of the First World War.

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