Catherine Leroux (Audrée Wilhemy)
The 2024 Canada Reads battle of the books concluded with The Future by Catherine Leroux, translated by Susan Ouriou and championed by novelist Heather O’Neill, named as the winner.
The novel, published last fall, is only the second book in translation that has won the contest in 23 years. It is set in a post-apocalyptic Detroit where everyone speaks French and a community of children create their own cooperative society in the woods of Parc Rouge.
The theme of this year’s battle of the books was “one book to carry us forward,” and was hosted by comedian Ali Hassan. The final contenders were both published by independent Canadian publishers: the runner up, Téa Mutonji’s Shut Up You’re Pretty by the VS. Books imprint of Vancouver’s Arsenal Pulp Press and The Future by Windsor’s Biblioasis. This is the first time a book published by Biblioasis has won Canada Reads.
The other three contenders, eliminated earlier in the competition were: Meet Me at the Lake by Carley Fortune (Penguin Canada), championed by Mirian Njoh; Denison Avenue by Christina Wong and Daniel Innes, ill. (ECW Press), championed by Naheed Nenshi; and Bad Cree by Jessica Johns (HarperCollins), championed by Dallas Soonias.
All of the finalists have spent recent weeks at or near the top of the Canadian fiction bestseller lists, The Future, most recently sitting at number five on the Bookmanager indie bookseller list.
The shortlisted titles were announced in January from a 15-title longlist announced in December.
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