Posted: Jun 01, 2021 5:00 AM ET | Last Updated: June 1
The winners of the 2020 Governor General s Literary Awards were announced on June 1, 2021. The books above won in the English-language categories.(CBC, Canada Council for the Arts) comments
Among the winners is Cree writer Michelle Good for her debut novel
Five Little Indians and renowned Canadian American poet Anne Carson for her original work
The Governor General s Literary Awards are among Canada s oldest and most prestigious prizes. The awards, worth $25,000 each, annually recognize the best published books in Canada.
The seven English-language winners are:
Fiction: Intimate and ambitious, Michelle Good s
Five Little Indians is a heart-breaking account of lives shaped and destroyed by the residential school system. Here is powerful testimony, expertly crafted and wisely observed, tragic yet full of redemptive moments. An unflinching, compassionate and moving novel about the struggle to live and love in
two-spirit,
Ojibwe/South Asian performer and playwright living in Toronto. She was named one of Now Magazine s 15 stage artists to watch, alongside Natasha Greenblatt. Bonell and Greenblatt co-wrote
The Election.
q11:52Yolanda Bonnell: Why the playwright is asking that only people of colour review her play, BugYolanda Bonnell is a two-spirit, Ojibwe/South Asian performer and playwright who s taking a stand with her play Bug, which is on stage now at the Theatre Passe Muraille in Toronto. She s made one request from the media: that only Indigenous, black or other people of colour review her play.11:52
Guarded Girls is a play by Charlotte Corbeil-Coleman.(Playwrights Canada Press)
Canadian artists and activists on their experiences of altruistic violence
A benevolent-seeming gesture disguised as generosity towards BIPOC creators, altruistic violence is becoming hard to ignore By Chaka V. Grier
From left: Chaka V. Grier, Kyla Pascal, Tarun Nayar, Kimmortal
In 1962, the classic Black girl group The Crystals’ released the controversial hit He Hit Me (And It Felt Like A Kiss). Decades later in 2014, Lana Del Rey released a re-imagined version called Ultraviolence. Both profoundly resonated with me. It’s got me thinking about another concept that’s becoming increasingly hard to ignore. I call it altruistic violence.
As a woman of colour, constantly fighting against silence and exploitation, even trivial or backhanded tokens of attention and affection can feel like you are finally being seen.