BC Celebrates Canada's Best

Longlist Announced for Canada's Largest Award for Non-Fiction

The jury for Canada's largest literary non-fiction prize, the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, has released its longlist for 2009. One hundred and sixty-three titles were nominated for the $40,000 prize by publishers from across the country. The jury panel has selected the following longlist of 15 books.

A Fair Country: Telling Truths about Canada
John Ralston Saul
Viking Canada

An Imperfect Offering: Humanitarian Action in the Twenty-first Century
James Orbinski, M.D.
Doubleday Canada

Bittersweet: Confessions of a Twice-Married Man
Philip Lee
Goose Lane Editions

Burning Down the House: Fighting Fires and Losing Myself
Russell Wangersky
Thomas Allen Publishers

Concrete Reveries: Consciousness and the City
Mark Kingwell
Viking Canada

Dangerous World: Natural Disasters, Manmade Catastrophes, and the Future of Human Survival
Marq de Villiers
Viking Canada

Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings
Mary Henley Rubio
Doubleday Canada

Marie-Anne: The Extraordinary Life of Louis Riel's Grandmother
Maggie Siggins
McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

Pathologies: A Life in Essays
Susan Olding
Freehand Books

Race to the Polar Sea: The Heroic Adventures and Romantic Obsessions of Elisha Kent Kane
Ken McGoogan
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

The Alchemy of Loss: A Young Widow's Transformation
Abigail Carter
McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

The Secret Lives of Saints: Child Brides and Lost Boys in Canada's Polygamous Mormon Sect
Daphne Bramham
Random House Canada

The Sexual Paradox: Extreme Men, Gifted Women and the Real Gender Gap
Susan Pinker
Random House Canada

The Soviet Ambassador: The Making of the Radical Behind Perestroika
Christopher Shulgan
McClelland & Stewart Ltd.

What is America? A Short History of the New World Order
Ronald Wright
Alfred A. Knopf Canada

The finalists for the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction will be announced in early December. The award presentation will take place February 2, 2009, in Vancouver.

Previous winners for the British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-Fiction include:
Lorna Goodison for From Harvey River (2008)
Noah Richler for This Is My Country, What's Yours? (2007)
Rebecca Godfrey for Under the Bridge (2006)
Patrick Lane for There Is a Season (2005)

The jury for the 2009 British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-Fiction comprises:

Stevie Cameron, award-winning author, journalist, and commentator. Known as one of Canada's foremost investigative journalists, Ms. Cameron has contributed to national media including Maclean's, The Globe and Mail, and The Financial Post. Her latest book is The Pickton File, based on the Robert Pickton murder trial in BC.

John Cruickshank, publisher of CBC News. Mr. Cruickshank is a former managing editor of The Globe and Mail and former editor-in-chief of The Vancouver Sun. Under his leadership the Sun won a record number of National Newspaper Awards. Prior to joining the CBC, Mr. Cruickshank was publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times and chief operating officer of the Sun-Times Media Group.

Andreas Schroeder, author, TV and radio host, and academic. Mr. Shroeder has written some 20 books, published in most of Canada's major newspapers, been a TV and radio host, and served as a long-time contributor to CBC radio's Basic Black Show. He holds the Rogers Communications Chair in Creative Nonfiction at UBC. His latest book is the autobiographical novel Renovating Heaven.

For further information, please contact:
British Columbia Achievement Foundation
w. www.bcachievement.com
e. info@bcachievement.com
t. 604-261-9777

Award presentation: February 2, 2009

2009 Award Finalists

Media Resources

Award Information

2008 Award

2008 Award Winner

Photos from the 2008 presentation ceremony