22nd Annual Trillium Book Award Finalists

Kevin Connolly: Revolver  (House of Anansi Press)

The highly anticipated follow-up to the award-winning poetry collection drift, Kevin Connolly's Revolver is a daring marriage of brilliant technical skill and explosive imagination. Each of the poems in this extraordinary collection is written in a different vocal register -- "revolving" through poetic voices with precise control and sharp wit. Connolly reveals himself to be one of the few poets in Canada who can pull off such a highwire act, and make it both thrilling and meaningful. Shortlisted for the 2009 Griffin Poetry Prize.

Publisher link: http://www.anansi.ca/titles.cfm?pub_id=1234

Helen Humphreys: Coventry (Phyllis Bruce Books – HarperCollins Publishers)

In a story of breathtaking beauty, with the wondrous poetic style that has earned her international acclaim, Helen Humphreys recreates the terror of the infamous Second World War bombing raid on the British town of Coventry. Drawing on actual events of that horrific night in 1940, Coventry is an astounding work, at once tense and lyrical, shocking and exquisite. Touching on themes of love, loss, loneliness and remembrance, Humphreys has crafted a story that will seize readers’ hearts and imaginations.

Publisher link: http://www.harpercanada.com/books/9780002007269/Coventry/index.aspx

Ibi Kaslik: The Angel Riots (Penguin Group Canada)

Acclaimed author Ibi Kaslik takes readers backstage with up-and-coming Montreal band The Angel Riots on their American tour. The band's story unfolds through the eyes of Jim, a small-town violin prodigy who struggles with her past as well as her present; and Rize, an emotionally charged trombone player who is stuck playing sidekick to his best friend, charismatic lead singer Jules. As the band's popularity mounts, the pressures of road-life and success begin to complicate relationships and The Angel Riots' chaotic world threatens to implode. Dark and dazzling, this novel firmly establishes Kaslik's reputation as a young literary talent.

Publisher link: http://www.penguin.ca/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780143055129,00.html?/ANGEL_RIOTS_Ibi_Kaslik

Ibi Kaslik is an internationally published novelist and freelance writer. Her most recent novel, The Angel Riots, is a rock n’ roll comic-tragedy. Her first novel, Skinny, was a New York Times Bestseller and has been published in numerous countries.

Pasha Malla was born in St. John’s, Newfoundland, and now lives in London, Ontario. He writes regularly for McSweeney's, has had multiple stories nominated for the Pushcart and Journey prizes, and was a pick for Best American Nonrequired Reading (selected by Dave Eggers). Currently he is working on a novel to be published by House of Anansi Press.

Charles Wilkins: In the Land of Long Fingernails (Penguin Group Canada)

During the hazy summer of 1969, Charles Wilkins, then a student at the University of Toronto, took a job as a gravedigger. The bizarre-but-true events of that time, including a midsummer gravediggers’ strike, the unearthing of a victim of an unsolved murder, and a little illegal boneshifting, play out amongst a Barnumesque parade of mavericks and misfits in this macabre and hilarious memoir of mortality, materialism, and the gradual coming-of-age of an impressionable young man. Shortlisted for the Stephen Leacock Medal for Humour 2009.

Publisher link: http://www.penguin.ca/nf/Book/BookDisplay/IN_THE_LAND_OF_LONG_FINGERNAILS_Charles_Wilkins

Writer and magazine journalist Charles Wilkins is the author of eleven books, including The Circus at the Edge of the Earth, which was shortlisted for the Rogers/Viacom Non-Fiction Prize, the bestselling Paddle to the Amazon, and A Wilderness Called Home: Dispatches from the Wild Heart of Canada. He lives in Thunder Bay, Ontario with his wife and three children.

Jeramy Dodds: Crabwise to the Hounds (Coach House Books)

With cameos by jackalopes, Glenn Gould, homemade spaceships and Carl Linnaeus, the poems in this debut collection of poetry are astonishing for their technical agility and their restless inventiveness. There is an elegance that matches Dodd's impulse to challenge the reader with fresh metaphor and remarkable phrasing; the formal ambitions of many of the poems in Crabwise to the Hounds are balanced by an inclination toward wordplay and bright musicality. Shortlisted for the 2009 Griffin Poetry Prize and 2009 Gerald Lampert Award.

Publisher link: http://www.chbooks.com/catalogue/crabwise_hounds

After growing up and living in Orono, Ontario and the vicinity of Peterborough for most of his life, Jeramy Dodds recently relocated to Fredericton. His poems have been translated into Finnish, French, Latvian, Swedish, German and Icelandic. In 2007 he held a residency at the Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators on the island of Götland, Sweden. He is the winner of the 2006 Bronwen Wallace Memorial Award and the 2007 CBC Literary Award in poetry. He works as a research archaeologist and co-edits for littlefishcartpress.

Joanne Page: Watermarks (Pedlar Press)

Against the growing apocalyptic clamour, Watermarks raises an anthem to water’s many guises. The work tours through water’s family album. Page’s poems make their way upstream, follow icebergs across Davis Strait, picnic on the shores of Lake Huron. In traveling the world or staying home, the poet pursues the tender work of picking up old stories to see what might lie hidden. To enter these poems is to enlist a wider field of vision, and to play.

Publisher link: http://www.litdistco.ca/?q=node/178309 

Joanne Page is the author of two previous books of poetry: Persuasion for Mathematician (Pedlar Press, 2003), and The River & the Lake (Quarry Press, 1993). She currently lives in Kingston, Ontario.

Adam Sol: Jeremiah, Ohio  (House of Anansi Press)

In Jeremiah, Ohio, Adam Sol reinvents the Biblical prophet and doomsayer Jeremiah for the postmodern age, and sends him on a reeling road trip through the strip malls and back roads of the United States with an ordinary, everyman companion, Bruce. The mismatched pair are thrown together by accident, but come to value each other as they travel in early September toward the "promised city" of New York.

Publisher link: http://www.anansi.ca/titles.cfm?pub_id=1292

Adam Sol is the author of two collections of poetry, Jonah's Promise, which won Mid-List Press's First Series Award for Poetry, and Crowd of Sounds, which won the Trillium Book Award for Poetry. He is also the author of numerous essays and reviews, and teaches English at the Laurentian University at Georgian College Program, and currently lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Marguerite Andersen, Le figuier sur le toit (Les Éditions L’Interligne)

As she prepares to celebrate her birthday with her Canadian family, an elderly woman who is both the central figure and the author of this work contemplates her life and inevitable death. She remembers moments in her childhood in Germany, providing the reader with glimpses of her life and that of her parents, who experienced the rise of National Socialism in Berlin and the disastrous years that followed. In this work of autofiction, Marguerite Andersen addresses anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany and collective guilt. She remembers the suffering that was inflicted on the Jews, but also the consequences of the Nazi regime for Germany’s other inhabitants and the devastation of the German cities that were bombed by the Allies. She immigrated to Canada in 1958 and has been responding to the question, Where are you from? ever since. This question inevitably evokes the feelings of guilt and exile that she has experienced ever since the end of World War II. This is a poignant novel about the tragic destiny of a people and its victims. Le figuier sur le toit won the 2009 Radio-Canada Readers’ Choice Award.

Publisher link: http://www.interligne.ca/ , http://www.livres-disques.ca/editions_interligne/products/product_detail.cfm?id=6686

Hédi Bouraoui, Cap Nord (Les Éditions du Vermillon)

Whereas the great military commander Hannibal Barka chose to leave his native land in pursuit of an ideal, Hannibal ben Omer is forced to leave his homeland to escape poverty and unemployment. Determined to succeed, he travels to New York, Sardinia, and Sicily, gradually discovering himself along the way. He also comes to understand the life and death of the father who abandoned him. No sooner does he leave his hometown of Sfax, his island home of Kerkenna, and his native country of Tunisia than he becomes aware that the colonial powers that excluded and dominated his ancestors for so many generations still respond to him in this way. Wherever he goes, an image of his mother follows him. In his quest, Hannibal only feels successful when he is true to himself and to love, hope, and humanism. Cap Nord was a Finalist in the 2009 Radio-Canada Readers’ Choice Award.

Publisher link:
http://www.leseditionsduvermillon.ca/Francais/catalogue/nouveautes.html#capnord
http://www.leseditionsduvermillon.ca/Francais/pdfs/Cap_Nord_Fiche.pdf

Hédi Bouraoui has written some 20 collections of poetry and several novels and essays. He has won many awards for his work, including the Comar d’Or (Tunisia), the Prix du Nouvel-Ontario, the Prix France-Maghreb de l’ADELF, and the Prix du Salon du Livre de Toronto. In 1997, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and he is a Chevalier des Palmes académiques. In 2003, he received an honourary doctorate from Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario, in recognition of his contribution to literature and literary criticism in Canada and internationally.

Daniel Marchildon, L’eau de vie (Uisge beatha) (Les Éditions David)
This saga spanning two continents, three families, and several generations tells the fascinating tale of Scotch and of life on the shores of Georgian Bay. Whisky, known as uisge beatha in Scottish Gaelic, is eau de vie – literally the water of life that flows in our veins and gives us life but often takes life too.
Élisabeth Legrand throws herself into a ridiculous project—opening a distillery in her tiny, isolated community of Pointe-au-Phare—with the goal of bringing back a single malt whisky from old reserves of Glen Dubh, a whisky that disappeared under tragic circumstances.
The history of the Fearmòr family, the creators of the famous Glen Dubh in Scotland, parallels that of the drink itself, including murderous struggles waged by clandestine distillers and the rise and fall of many an empire. L’eau de vie (Uisge beatha) was a Finalist in the 2009 Radio-Canada Readers’ Choice Award.

Daniel Marchildon was born near Penetanguishene, 150 km north of Toronto, and lives there to this day. He has some 20 works to his credit, including six novels for children, short stories, scripts for television and film, historical essays, and materials for community literacy groups. He relates that in writing this novel, he developed a passion for Scotch!

Melchior Mbonimpa, La terre sans mal (Prise de parole)

Teta, 45 years of age, is on the verge of a breakdown. Now living in a culture so different from their own, his three boys are rebelling. Teta resigns himself to making his confession to Father Robert, in the hopes that the long pilgrimage through time will release the weight of the past and allow him to plant his feet squarely on the ground. As he begins to talk about his childhood, his family, his marriage, and the great divides between castes, we learn the story of his African past and Canadian present.

Originally from Burundi, Melchior Mbonimpa has written three novels to critical acclaim: Le totem des Baranda (winner of the Prix Jacqueline-Déry- Mochon), Le dernier roi faiseur de pluie (winner of the Prix de littérature éclairée du Nord), and Les morts ne sont pas morts (winner of the Prix Christine-Dimitriu-van-Saanen). He is a professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Sudbury and the Director of its Centre for Ethics.

Nancy Vickers, Aeterna Le jardin des immortelles (Les Éditions David)

As we walk through the gate, we discover a place filled with magnificent funeral sculptures in marble and granite, all photographed in cemeteries in Ontario and Quebec. Nancy Vickers has created a poetic cemetery, a dramatic theatre of dreaming voices. It is a silent place and yet, it is a song for life filled with nostalgia and fleeting memories. Listen to the voices of etheral creatures rooted in the shimmering of their words, like vigils through the night.

Born in Saguenay in 1946, Nancy Vickers has lived in Ottawa for close to 40 years. In her 11 books to date, she has explored many genres: poetry, the novel, the short story, erotica, and tales for readers young and old. Nancy Vickers is a passionate photographer. In 1997, she won a Trillium Book Award for Le pied de Sappho, an erotic novel published under the pseudonym Anne Claire. In 2003, La Petite Vieille aux poupées earned her the City of Ottawa Book Award

Michèle Laframboise, La Quête de Chaaas Volume 1 (Éditions Médiaspaul)

Attacked, robbed, and left for dead in a frozen desert where the hunt for azan takes place, the young Chaaas vows to make his attacker pay. In his crosshairs is the bold Sson, whose father and brother are engaged in shady trade: the husk of the azan seed yields a hallucinogen that is highly sought after in the Chhhatyl Empire. Ignoring his friends’ pleas, Chaaas sets off in pursuit of his rival, preparing to take him down, but, suddenly, fate intervenes…

Publisher link: http://www.mediaspaul.qc.ca/nouveautes/romans_jeunesse/6 and
http://www.michele-laframboise.com/en/Chaaas_English.htm

Ontario writer and graphic novelist Michèle Laframboise draws on her scientific training to create adventures with a strong streak of humanism. Her first novel, Les nuages de Phoenix, won the Cécile Gagnon Award for Youth Literature.

Françoise Lepage, Les chercheurs d’étoiles (Les Éditions L’Interligne)

Noémie has a dream: she wants to follow in the footsteps of her idol, Marcel Marceau. However, her mother has other plans and tries to dissuade her from becoming a mime. Her father disappeared from her life two years ago. Noémie feels lost and does not know where to turn. Luckily, her best friend Grégoire is encouraging her to pursue her dream. On Canada Day, Noémie meets a gypsy from whom she purchases a mysterious object: a magician’s spyglass with which one can see into the future. When Noémie puts the spyglass to her eye for the very first time, she is catapulted into what looks like a scene from an old movie. Where is she? And who is this person named Charles who is so enamoured of planes and flying? How will this new place help her to find the answers to her own questions about the future?

Françoise Lepage has taught youth literature in the University of Ottawa’s Department of French. She has written three works in this field, including a history of youth literature in Francophone Canada entitled Histoire de la littérature pour la jeunesse (Québec et francophonies du Canada), for which she won many awards (the Gabrielle Roy, the Champlain, and the City of Ottawa awards). Her novel for children, Poupeska, garnered the Trillium Book Award for Children’s Literature and was a finalist for the 2006 Governor General’s Award for Children’s Literature.

Paul Prud’Homme, Les Rebuts : Hockey 2 (Les Éditions du Vermillon)

When the region’s high schools create a hockey league, Guy (Ti-Foin), Luc, and Sab are rejected—Guy and Luc because they are considered too small and Sab because, well, because she’s a girl. With a great deal of effort and imagination, Ti-Foin and Sab create a hockey team called “Les Rebuts” [the Rejects], made up of kids who have been rejected just like they were. It is a motley crew. Sab, with her iron will, becomes the goalie. La Bol is a mediocre player but an excellent tactician. But can they beat “The Bullies”, a team of big tough kids who live up to their name?

Publisher link:
http://www.leseditionsduvermillon.ca/Francais/catalogue/nouveautes.html#lesrebuts
http://www.leseditionsduvermillon.ca/Francais/pdfs/Rebuts_Fiche.pdf

Paul Prud’Homme is a high school teacher in a small Ontario town on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. He writes for young people—both boys and girls. He knows how to talk to them and likes to share their world.