December 7th, 2024

Books about Indigenous life shortlisted for Amazon Canada First Novel Award

By The Canadian Press on May 9, 2024.

Author Alicia Elliott poses in Toronto on Thursday, March 21, 2019. Four books about Indigenous life are among the finalists for the $60,000 Amazon Canada First Novel Award. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston

TORONTO – Four books about Indigenous life are among the finalists for the $60,000 Amazon Canada First Novel Award.

The six-book short list includes “Empty Spaces” by Jordan Abel, a reimagining of “The Last of the Mohicans” from the perspective of a contemporary Nisga’a person and “And Then She Fell” by Alicia Elliott, which follows a Mohawk woman made to feel like an impostor in her wealthy Toronto neighbourhood.

Kōtuku Titihuia Nuttall was also shortlisted for “Tauhou,” a hybrid novel that imagines Vancouver Island sits in the ocean beside Aotearoa, New Zealand’s north island.

Also in the running is “The Berry Pickers” by Amanda Peters, which was a finalist for the Atwood-Gibson Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and tells the story of a Mi’kmaq family that moves to Maine to pick berries, only for their daughter to disappear.

Janika Oza’s “A History of Burning,” the intergenerational saga of an Indo-Ugandan family uprooted by colonialism, made the list as well. It’s also up for the Carol Shields Prize for Fiction and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award.

Rounding out the short list is “As the Andes Disappeared,” written by Caroline Dawson and translated by Anita Anand, a coming-of-age story about a girl whose family moves from Chile to Montreal.

The award will be handed out on June 6, and each of the runners-up will receive $6,000.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 9, 2024.

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