Thomas King has won the 2021 Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour for Indians on Vacation (HarperCollins Publishers). The medal is accompanied by a $15,000 prize. The novel is about Bird and Mimi, a couple vacationing in Europe, as they trace a journey taken by an uncle a century before, peppered with historical, political, and personal commentary.

King, a companion of the Order of Canada, won the Governor General’s Literary Award for English-language Fiction for his 2014 novel The Back of the Turtle and the 2014 RBC Taylor Prize for The Inconvenient Indian. His most recent novel, Sufferance, was number two on the Bookmanager hardcover fiction chart for the week ending May 29.

The runners-up, Joseph Kertes for Last Impressions (Penguin Random House) and Murray Morgan for Dirty Birds (Breakwater Books) will each receive $3,000. Like last year’s ceremony, this year’s gala dinner will not be held due to COVID-19. Instead, a gala to be held in 2022 will celebrate the 2020 winners, this year’s winners, and next year’s winners simultaneously.