Madeleine Thien is the winner of the 2006 First Novel Award for Certainty.
The author, who is based in Quebec City, receives $7,500 for the prize, which recognizes first-time Canadian novelists and is presented by Amazon.ca and Books in Canada.
Certainty (McClelland & Stewart), took five years to write and examines how the past encroaches on the present and future. It was previously a finalist for the Kiriyama Prize.
This is the 30th anniversary of the First Novel Award.
Previous recipients include Joseph Boyden, Michael Ondaatje, Rohinton Mistry and Nino Ricci.
Thien studied dance for two years at Simon Fraser University before she transferred to the University of British Columbia's creative-writing program.
Joining Thien as finalists for this year's award were Peter Behrens for The Law of Dreams from House of Anansi Press, John Degen for The Uninvited Guest from Nightwood Editions, Annette Lapointe for Stolen from Anvil Press, Heather O'Neill for Lullabies for Little Criminals from Harper Collins and Adam Lewis Schroeder for Empress of Asia from Raincoast Books.