Souvankham Thammavongsa has won the $20,000 Trillium Book Award for her short-fiction collection How to Pronounce Knife (McClelland & Stewart).

Poet Jody Chan was awarded the Trillium Book Award for Poetry for her collection, Sick (Black Lawrence Press).

Thammavongsa, who won the Trillium poetry award for her 2013 collection Light, won the Scotiabank Giller prize for How to Pronounce Knife in November.

Danièle Vallée was awarded the French Trillium Book Award for Sept nuits dans la vie de Chérie (Éditions David). Éric Mathieu was awarded the Trillium Book Award for Children’s Literature in French for Capitaine Boudu et les enfants de la Cédille (Éditions L’Interligne).

The English and French book award winners receive $20,000, and their publishers will receive $2,500 to promote the winning titles. The winners of the poetry and children’s literature awards receive $10,000, and their publishers will receive $2,000 to promote the winning titles.

The jurors for the English Trillium Book Award were maxine bailey, former Q&Q review editor Steven W. Beattie, and Cherie Dimaline. The jurors for the English poetry award were Michael Redhill, Liz Howard, and Q&Q contributor Sheniz Janmohamed.

The Trillium awards honour works written by authors from Ontario. The winners were chosen from 16 finalists and announced in a virtual ceremony on June 15.

Thammavongsa and Chan will be featured in conversation with Beattie on Friday June 18 on Facebook live.