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Arnolda Dufour Bowes wins Danuta Gleed award for debut short-fiction collection

Arnolda Dufour Bowes (photo courtesy The Writers’ Union of Canada)

Métis writer Arnolda Dufour Bowes has won the $10,000 Danuta Gleed Literary Award. The annual award recognizes the best first collection of short fiction by a Canadian author in English.

Bowes won this year’s award for her book 20.12m: A Short Story Collection of a Life Lived as a Road Allowance Métis (Gabriel Dumont Institute Press). This year’s jury, comprised of Mark Anthony Jarman, Derek Mascarenhas, and Carmen Rodriguez, said the book “offers a poignant depiction of the life of Métis families as marginalized ‘Road Allowance’ people. The collection flows with the power of truth and the richness of language firmly rooted in oral traditions.”

Silmy Abdullah’s Home of the Floating Lily (Dundurn Press) and Gillian Wigmore’s Night Watch: The Vet Suite (Invisible Publishing) were announced as runners-up. Each will receive $1,000.

The winner and runners-up were selected from a five-title shortlist announced earlier this spring.

The Danuta Gleed award is administered by the Writers’ Union of Canada. Previous winners include Heather O’Neill, Norma Dunning, and last year’s winner, Jack Wang.