Deborah Campbell

The West Coast Book Prize Society has named the winners of this year’s B.C. Book Prizes, honouring the province’s writers and publishers with $2,000 in each of seven categories. A special $5,000 Governor’s Award for literary achievement over one’s career was presented to Douglas Coupland.

The following authors received their awards at the Lieutenant Governor’s B.C. Book Prizes Gala in Vancouver on April 29:

Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize

• Jennifer Manuel, The Heaviness of Things That Float (Douglas & McIntyre)

Roderick Haig-Brown Regional Prize

• Neil J. Sterritt, Mapping My Way Home: A Gitxsan History (Creekstone Press)

Hubert Evans Non-Fiction Prize

• Deborah Campbell, A Disappearance in Damascus: A Story of Friendship and Survival in the Shadow of War (Knopf Canada)

Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize

• Adèle Barclay, If I Were in a Cage I’d Reach Out for You (Nightwood Editions)

Christie Harris Illustrated Children’s Literature Prize

• Monique Gray Smith and Julie Flett, ill., My Heart Fills With Happiness (Orca Book Publishers)

Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize

• Iain Lawrence, The Skeleton Tree (Tundra Books)

Bill Duthie Booksellers’ Choice Award

• Richard Wagamese, Embers: One Ojibway’s Meditations (D&M)

Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence

• Douglas Coupland