Four debut novelists among five authors shortlisted for the $70,000 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize

Four debut novelists among five authors shortlisted for the $70,000 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize BRAD WHEELER PUBLISHED 1 HOUR AGO Open this photo in gallery: The five authors on the short list are Lisa Robertson, Zak Jones, Téa Mutonji, Blair Palmer Yoxall and Ashraf Zaghal. TGAM VISUALS/SUPPLIED COMMENTS SHARE SAVE FOR LATER Listen to this article Learn more about audio Log in or create a free account to listen to this article. Cult-favourite author, poet and essayist Lisa Robertson is one of five shortlisted nominees for Canada’s Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. The other finalists are all first-time novelists. Ms. Robertson’s Riverwork, published by Coach House Books, is also one of 14 books longlisted for this year’s Giller Prize. The protagonist in the Paris-set novel is a domestic who inherits her great-aunt’s journal entries, written a century earlier. “I’m often motivated by topics and details that seem to be left out of the official narratives,” the Toronto-born, France-based writer told The Globe and Mail recently. “One of those absences has been the labour of women, particularly working-class women. They are barely present in the big books of history and literature, although they hold up the world. I’m interested in what women keep, what we take, what we do in secret, what we pass on, and how we do that.” Ms. Robertson once ran Proprioception Books, a Vancouver store that specialized in poetry, theory and criticism. Her first novel, The Baudelaire Fractal, was a finalist for the Governor-General’s Award for English-language fiction in 2020. The Atwood Gibson jury cited Riverwork as a “stunning foray into a river of language” and an “insightful meditation on the nature of being.” The jury, consisting of writers Conor Kerr of Edmonton, Kathleen Winter of Quebec’s Eastern Townships and past winner David Chariandy of Toronto, considered 118 titles representing 62 publishing imprints. The prize purse totals $100,000, with the winner receiving $70,000 and the other finalists getting $7,500 each. The distinguished literary award was founded in 1997 as the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize. It was renamed in 2021 to honour Canadian literary couple Margaret Atwood and Graeme Gibson (who died in 2019). Five books shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction This year’s shortlisted authors include Zak Jones for Fancy Gap, published by Hamish Hamilton Canada. One of the characters in the…