Nalo Hopkinson

Nalo Hopkinson has won the $3,000 2025 Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic — making her a three-time winner of the award.

Hopkinson was named the winner of this year’s prize for her novel Blackheart Man (Saga Press/Simon & Schuster). In their citation, the jury called the book “sublime.”

“The novel gains strength from the windows it opens into our world—the history of slave revolts, the history of colonialism, the slightly topsy-turvy effect of living in a world so like (and unlike) our own,” the jury wrote. “Ultimately, Blackheart Man is a magical book with depth, wisdom and lightness of touch, challenging the reader to widen their scope on the genre.”

Hopkinson previously won the Sunburst Award in 2003 for Skin Folk and again in 2008 for The New Moon’s Arms.

This year marks a return of the annual $3,000 award after a four-year hiatus. Jurors Natalee Caple, Geoff Ryman, and Lorina Stephens selected the winning title from the five books shortlisted for this year’s prize in July. In total, 78 books were submitted to the prize.