Ottawa Book Awards: 2012 English Fiction winner

Ottawa Book Awards / Prix du livre d’Ottawa

The Ottawa Book Awards/Prix du livre d’Ottawa recognize the top English and French books published in the previous year. Both awards have separate categories for fiction and non-fiction. All shortlisted finalists receive $1,000 and each winner receives a prize of $7,500.

The finalists for the 2012 awards were announced in late September and the winners presented by Mayor Watson at a ceremony hosted by Charlotte Gray, award-winning biographer and historian, and Martin Vanasse, Cultural Reporter with Radio-Canada on October 24, 2012 at the Shenkman Arts Centre.

For more information, including the complete list of finalists, visit the new Ottawa Book Awards/Prix du livre d’Ottawa website at www.ottawabookawards.ca.

The English Fiction category is awarded to an outstanding published work of fiction including novels, short stories, children’s literature and poetry published in the previous year.   In the English Fiction category, two of the five nominees were books for young adults. They were

• Tilt
by Alan Cumyn
Groundwood Books








• The Summer of Permanent Wants 
by Jamieson Findlay
Doubleday Canada








The other nominees for this award were:

• Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay (McClelland & Stewart)
• REQUIEM by Frances Itani (HarperCollins Publishers) 
• Err by Shane Rhodes (Nightwood Editions)

Congratulations to the winner of this award:

The Summer of Permanent Wants

by Jamieson Findlay

Doubleday Canada

978-0-385-66928-3

241 pp.

Ages 10-14

2011

"After losing her powers of speech due to a mysterious illness, eleven-year-old Emmeline joins her Gran on a journey along the Rideau Canal system in a boat (Permanent Wants) that is also a bookstore. Picardy Bob, Consolata LeGrand and a carnival of other characters appear around every bend in this poignant ode to the redemptive powers of story-telling."

Description from the Ottawa Book Awards website