media release
McNaughton and Morgan Are Announced As The Winners of The 2008 Newfoundland and Labrador Book AwardsMay 28, 2008–St John's, NL: During an awards ceremony yesterday at Government House, Janet McNaughton was presented with the 2008 Bruneau Family Children's/Young Adult Literature Award for her book, The Raintree Rebellion (HarperCollins Canada, 2006), and Bernice Morgan was presented with the 2008 Downhome Fiction Award for her novel, Cloud of Bone (Knopf Canada, 2007).Other finalists for the 2008 Bruneau Family Children's/Young Adult Literature Award were Catherine Hogan Safer for What if Your Mom Made Raisin Buns (Creative Book Publishing, 2006) and Robin McGrath for Livyers World (Creative Book Publishing, 2007). Other finalists for the 2008 Downhome Fiction Award were Russell Wangersky for The Hour of Bad Decisions (Coteau Books, 2006) and Kathleen Winter for boYs (Biblioasis, 2007). Distinguished Patron of the awards, The Honourable John C. Crosbie, PC, OC, ONL, QC, Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland and Labrador, presented a cheque for $1,500 to each winner and for $500 to each finalist. This marks the 12th year of the Newfoundland and Labrador Book Awards, which honour excellence in Newfoundland and Labrador writing in children's/YA literature and fiction in one year and in non-fiction and poetry the following year. The awards are jointly administered by the Writers' Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador and by the Literary Arts Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador. Judges for the Children's/Young Adult category were Carmelita McGrath, Ed Kavanagh, and Nora Flynn. Judges for the Fiction category were Carmine Starnino, Annette Staveley, and Susan Rendell. Here's what the judges had to say about the winning books: "Janet McNaughton's The Raintree Rebellion is a sophisticated, moving exploration of the nature of conflict and reconciliation. Through her engaging protagonist, Blake Raintree, and a memorable supporting cast, McNaughton tackles serious subject matter in a fearless, vivid manner. As usual, her attention to detail is admirable: her future world is meticulously created and believable. The writing is also excellent: always rhythmic and precise, the pace and suspense always perfectly sustained. But it is the characters and subject matter that make this book so successful. McNaughton believes that young people care about their world, and are more than willing to face its most difficult problems. In dealing with the controversial topic of reconciliation, she treats young readers with the utmost respect and asks them to think seriously about what makes us truly human. The fact that she accomplishes this in such an engrossing, vivid story shows what a fine writer she really is. Ambitious in its scope and professionally executed, The Raintree Rebellion highlights the talents of a master storyteller. "The epigraph of Bernice Morgan's Cloud of Bone is Milan Kundera's defence of the arts: The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting "Using male and female voices, sophisticated narrative techniques, a unique structure and compelling imagery, Bernice Morgan takes the reader into the consciousness of three personalities separated by time, culture and gender but united in their powerlessness and their struggle to make sense of their lives: Kyle Holloway, an impressionable young man growing up in pre-Confederation Newfoundland; a young Beothuk girl, Shanawdithit, living in Central Newfoundland in the early years of the nineteenth century, and Dr. Judith Muir, an English anthropologist in Rwanda in the 1990s. Despite their apparent distinctiveness, they are all helpless in the face of random acts of violence. Despite their horror at witnessing rape, murder and genocide, they all recognize their own capacity for cruelty and betrayal in their struggle to survive. And they all search for ways they as individuals can find beauty and meaning in a savage world. "In this broad ranging, complex novel, Bernice Morgan's creative imagination projects authentically and unsentimentally many dark scenarios. Indeed, at times the most barbaric (417) do seem to have inherited the earth by brutalizing an individual's body, language and community. But Morgan also gives us glimpses of the life-enhancing power of a self and a society that values collective memory, grounded in history, culture and landscape. The liturgical vocal rhythms of the Beothuk, Nonosabasut, offer a way out of the darkness, if humanity can learn how to share belongings, how to give and receive gifts, how to read signs and make cures, how to build canoes and mamateeks, how to respect Baetha and all things that live in it, on it and around it. (301) "Through combining the language of the physical and metaphysical, Morgan is the Shadow-dancer for our post-colonial world, the keeper of shadows, keeper of words, keeper of things we might forget. (178) For in that forgetting we all become powerless." The awards are generously sponsored by the Bruneau Family and Downhome Inc., with in-kind contributions provided by Vivid Communications and The Telegram. |
Media contact: Shoshanna Wingate Executive Director Writers' Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador St. John's, NL Tel: (709) 739-5215 Email: wanl@nf.aibn.com |
| The Writers' Alliance of Newfoundland and Labrador operates with funds raised from membership dues, fundraising activities, corporate and private sponsorship, and with the financial support of the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council, Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, City of St John's, Canada Council for the Arts, and the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador through the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation, which the Alliance gratefully acknowledges. | |
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