For Immediate Release

BACKGROUNDER
Ontario Media Development Corporation
2015 TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD
June 17, 2015
TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD/PRIX TRILLIUM
The Ontario government established the Trillium Book Award in 1987 to recognize the literary
excellence and diversity of Ontario writers and writing. The Trillium Book Award reflects the
wealth of talent and creativity of Ontario authors writing in both English and French languages.
The award is open to books in any genre which has made for a rich, diverse range of fiction and
non-fiction winning titles over the years, as well as for the yearly shortlist. The award has grown
in stature and today it is considered the province’s foremost honour for literature.
This year’s nominees reflect the tremendous breadth, depth and diversity of Ontario authors –
ranging from the well-established to those who were published for the first time, and from urbanto small-town-dwellers.
We thank the members of the English and French language juries for their tremendous
dedication and hard work in reviewing the many submissions, narrowing them down to a
shortlist and selecting the winning authors:
ENGLISH LANGUAGE JURY
Helen Guri’s poems and essays have been published widely in Canada as well as in the U.S.
and Australia. Her first book of poetry, Match, was published by Coach House press and
shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award for Poetry. She is a graduate of the MA in Creative
Writing program at the University of Toronto, where she has also been a guest lecturer. She
edits fiction, nonfiction, and poetry for various large and small presses, and was selected as a
writer-in-residence at Al Purdy House for 2015.
Cordelia Strube is an accomplished playwright and the author of nine critically acclaimed
novels. Winner of the CBC literary competition and a Toronto Arts Foundation Award, she has
been nominated for the Governor General's Award, the Trillium Book Award, the Books in
Canada First Novel Award, the Prix Italia, and long-listed for the Scotiabank Giller Prize. Nellienominated for her radio plays, she is also a three-time nominee for the ReLit Award. Her latest
novel, On the Shores of Darkness, There is Light, will be published in Spring 2016.
James Grainger’s debut collection of stories, The Long Slide (2004), was the winner of the
ReLit Award for Short Fiction. His reviews and articles have appeared in the Toronto Star, Quill
& Quire, the Globe and Mail, Elle Canada, Men’s Fashion, Sharp, and Rue Morgue. His debut
novel, Harmless, has recently been published. James lives in Toronto with his family.
FRENCH LANGUAGE JURY
Jean Mohsen Fahmy, the author of several novels and numerous essays, short stories and
articles, lives in Ottawa. A former president of the Association des auteures et auteurs de
l’Ontario français (AAOF), he also founded a book industry organization, the Table de
concertation du livre Franco-Ontarien, and is deeply involved in the literary community. His
novels have been popular with both the public and critics and have won many prizes, including
the Trillium Book Award, the Prix littéraire Le Droit, and the Ottawa Book Award, and the Prix
France-Acadie.
Aristote Kavungu is an author of Congolese and Angolan origin. He was a finalist for the Prix
Anne-Hébert for his book L'adieu à San Salvador in 2001. In 2003, after his book Un Train pour
l'Est was published, he was awarded the Grand Prix du Salon du livre de Toronto. He is also a
screenwriter, and wrote the short film “Pour l’amour d’Aicha”. He won the Prix Primaco de
mérite afro-caraïbéen de l’Ontario in 2005. Aristote Kavungu currently teaches French language
and literature in Whitby.
Poet, playwright, novelist and short story writer Michèle Matteau has always made writing an
essential part of her life. The first volume of her À ta santé, la vie! trilogy, Cognac et porto, won
a 2002 Trillium Book Award, while the third, Un doigt de brandy dans un verre de lait chaud,
was awarded the Prix Christine-Dimitriu-van-Saanen in 2005. Her first collection of poetry,
Passerelles, won the 2010 Trillium Book Award for Poetry in French, and her novel Avant que
ne tombe la nuit, published in 2012, was a Trillium Book Award finalist in 2013.
Congratulations to the publishers of the Trillium winning books for their commitment to, and
support, of the authors:
PUBLISHERS OF TRILLIUM BOOK AWARD WINNERS
 Coach House Books is an independent publisher of literary fiction, poetry and nonfiction, with an emphasis on unusual and innovative work. Their books are printed on
their own Heidelberg presses. The company received the 2008 Premier’s Award for
Excellence in the Arts. (Publisher for Broom Broom by Brecken Hancock)
 Pedlar Press publishes innovative, contemporary Canadian fiction & poetry, the
occasional literary nonfiction title, works that preserve and extend the literary tradition
that values experimentation in style and form. Writers include Maleea Acker, Martha
Baillie, Aga Maksimowska, Jan Zwicky, Phil Hall, Anne Fleming, and Rachel Lebowitz.
(Publisher for How We Were Born by Kate Cayley)
 Les Éditions L'Interligne pursues the dual objective of fostering the emergence of
original work and discussion in the French language, and encouraging deeper
exploration of a literature that brings out – in the act of creation – the individual
imagination of Francophone Ontario and French Canada. (Publisher for Violoncelle
pour lune d’automne by Michel Dallaire, and Mauvaise mine by Micheline
Marchand)
Contact Trillium Book Award Finalists:
Jo Hatt, Trillium Book Award Publicist
Narrative PR
416-922-2211 x 3349 Email: [email protected]
Contact for OMDC:
Sharon Wilson, Communications Officer
416-642-6616 Email: [email protected]
Contacts for Minister Coteau:
Blane McPhail - Minister’s Office
416-326-9329 [email protected]
Mark L. Smith
MTCS Communications Branch
[email protected]
http://www.omdc.on.ca/
http://news.ontario.ca/mtc/en/index.html
www.omdc.on.ca
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