Kai Thomas has won the $60,000 Atwood Gibson Writers' Trust Fiction Prize for his debut novel, "In the Upper Country," about two Black women at the northern end of the Underground Railroad. Thomas is seen in an undated handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Writers' Trust, Brooke Bridges, *MANDATORY CREDIT*
TORONTO – Debut novelist Kai Thomas took home the top fiction prize at the Writers’ Trust Awards on Tuesday evening for his story of two Black women at the northern end of the Underground Railroad.
Thomas, who is from Ottawa, won the $60,000 Atwood Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize for “In the Upper Country,” published by Penguin Canada, at a ceremony in Toronto.
“I’ve obviously never done this before and having guides like you all is fantastic,” he said after thanking his editors and publisher.
Thomas’s novel was also shortlisted for the Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction and the 2023 Amazon Canada First Novel Award.
Writers’ Trust jurors praised the book as a “mesmerizing, lyrical testament to the power of storytelling.”
“Thomas deftly and compassionately braids deeply engrossing stories within stories that explore a little-known aspect of Canadian history,” they wrote in their citation.
Meanwhile, Christina Sharpe won the top non-fiction award of the night for her book “Ordinary Notes,” which explores questions about loss and the role it plays in Black life.
Sharpe won the $75,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for the book, which was also shortlisted for a National Book Award in the United States.
Sharpe is the Canada Research Chair in Black Studies in the Humanities at York University in Toronto, where she lives.
Jurors praised “Ordinary Notes” as creating “a new narrative space at once intimate, deeply informed, and uncompromising.”
“To read this book is to turn toward a voice and listen as if our lives depend on it – and risk being changed in the process,” they said in their citation.
The Dayne Ogilvie Prize for LGBTQ2S+ Emerging Writers, which is worth $10,000, went to Anuja Varghese for her short story collection “Chrysalis,” which also won this year’s Governor General’s Literary Award for fiction.
The Writers’ Trust also hands out awards recognizing writers’ careers.
The Latner Griffin Writers’ Trust Poetry Prize, which goes to a mid-career poet and is worth $60,000, was awarded to Laisha Rosnau, whose poetry collections include “Our Familiar Hunger” and “Pluck.”
Helen Humphreys, author of “Rabbit Foot Bill,” won the $25,000 Matt Cohen Award: In Celebration of a Writing Life.
The $25,000 Vicky Metcalf Award for Literature for Young People went to Kyo Maclear, who predominantly writes children’s fiction but whose memoir “Unearthing” won this year’s Governor General Literary Award for non-fiction.
Finally, the Writer’s Trust Engel Findley Award, which is worth $25,000 and goes to a mid-career author of predominantly fiction, was awarded to Anosh Irani, author of “The Parcel.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 21, 2023.
