TORONTO -- Authors Modris Eksteins and Robert R. Fowler doubled up on prize prospects Tuesday as the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction released its short list and the Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction put out a long list.
Eksteins's "Solar Dance: Genius, Forgery, and the Crisis of Truth in the Modern Age" and Fowler's "A Season in Hell: My 130 Days In the Sahara With Al Qaeda" were named to the BC National Award list, along with "A Geography of Blood: Unearthing Memory from a Prairie Landscape" by Candace Savage and "Pinboy" by George Bowering.
Savage's book recently won the $60,000 Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction.
The BC prize, now in its ninth year, carries a $40,000 paycheque. The winner will be announced in February.
Meanwhile, the Charles Taylor Prize, worth $25,000 announced a long list of 15 titles, including Ross King's "Leonardo and The Last Supper," which recently won the Governor General's Literary Award for Non-Fiction.
Other books in the running for the Charles Taylor include "Warlords: Borden, Mackenzie King, and Canada's World Wars," by previous prize winner Tim Cook of Ottawa and "What We Talk About When We Talk About War," by Toronto's Noah Richler.
Meanwhile, Sandra Martin of the Globe and Mail received a nod for "Working the Dead Beat: 50 Lives That Changed Canada" as did the Globe's Jeffrey Simpson for "Chronic Condition: Why Canada's Health-Care System Needs to be Dragged Into the 21st Century."
This is the second year that the Charles Taylor Prize has issued a long list.
