RBC Taylor Prize founder Noreen Taylor and prize trustee Vijay Parmar, president of RBC Wealth Management’s PH&N Investment Counsel, announced the shortlist for the 2015 RBC Taylor Prize, honouring excellence in Canadian literary non-fiction, at Toronto’s Omni King Edward Hotel this morning.
A jury comprising arts executive Kevin Garland, editor and columnist Martin Levin, and 2013 Taylor Prize winner Andrew Preston selected the following finalists from 121 submissions and 12 longlisted titles:
- Plum Johnson, They Left Us Everything (Penguin Canada)
- David O’Keefe, One Day in August: the Untold Story Behind Canada’s Tragedy at Dieppe (Random House Canada)
- Barbara Taylor, The Last Asylum: A Memoir of Madness in our Times (Hamish Hamilton Canada)
- M.G. Vassanji, And Home Was Kariakoo: A Memoir of East Africa (Doubleday Canada)
- Kathleen Winter, Boundless: Tracing Land and Dream in a Northwest Passage (House of Anansi Press)
Each shortlisted author receives $2,000. The winning author will be presented with the $25,000 prize at a ceremony in Toronto March 2, and will be invited to read at next year’s IFOA and choose the recipient of the $10,000 RBC Taylor Prize Emerging Writer’s Award.