Five writers have been named recipients of the 2024 Canada Prizes for scholarly books in the humanities and social sciences.

The annual awards were relaunched in November with a new structure after a hiatus that was prompted by the controversial 2020 winner. Going forward, five books, including two by first-time authors and one in French, will be named winners each year. Each winner will receive $4,000. Previously, two $10,000 winners were named each year, one for an English-language book and one for a French-language book.

The prizes, presided over by the Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS), aim to recognize “the most inspiring, impactful, and transformative scholarly books” published each year.

This year’s winners are:

• Autobiography as Indigenous Intellectual Tradition: Cree and Métis âcimisowina by Deanna Reder (Wilfrid Laurier University Press)
• Villain, Vermin, Icon, Kin: Wolves and the Making of Canada by Stephanie Rutherford (McGill-Queens University Press)
• Cripping Intersex by Celeste E. Orr (UBC Press)
• Penser la «pervertibilité» – Avec Jacques Derrida by Nicholas Cotton (Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal)
• Regards sur le monde. Conflits éthiques et pensées romanesques dans la littérature française contemporaine by Pascal Riendeau (Les Presses de l’Université Laval)
  

The prizes are independently juried by the Scholarly Book Awards Academic Council, which selects the five best books funded by the Scholarly Book Awards.

The prizes, which used to name one English- and one French-language winner each year, were put on hold after the 2020 Prix du Canada winner was announced. The book was about Métis identity and was written by non-Métis authors. The FHSS’s Indigenous advisory circle wasn’t consulted about the award choice, and some members of the circle resigned, University Affairs magazine reported.

The relaunched prizes are the result of a comprehensive program review that started in 2021, the FHSS said.