TORONTO, ONTARIO (October 11, 2006) - This evening, Amazon.ca and Books in Canada presented the 2005 First Novel Award and a cheque for $7,500 to Joseph Boyden, author of Three Day Road, at a ceremony held at The Vaughan Estate in Toronto. Boyden was selected to receive the award from a group of six finalists, all of whom had their first novels published in the year 2005.
The First Novel Award recognizes outstanding achievement by first-time Canadian novelists and has served as a springboard for the careers of many of Canada's most renowned authors. Colin McAdam, author of Some Great Thing, won the 2004 award; Michel Basilières won the 2003 award for Black Bird; and Mary Lawson won the 2002 award for her first novel, Crow Lake. Other previous winners include Michael Ondaatje, Rohinton Mistry, Joan Barfoot, Joy Kogawa, Wayne Johnston, Nino Ricci and Deborah Joy Corey.
Boyden, who divides his time between Northern Ontario and Louisiana, where he teaches writing at the University of New Orleans, has received the Rogers' Writers' Trust Fiction Award, the Ontario Library Service's Northern Lit Award and the McNally Robinson Aboriginal Book of the Year Award. He has also been shortlisted for the Governor General's Award for Fiction and authored Born with a Tooth, a collection of stories that was shortlisted for the Upper Canada Writer's Craft Award. Three Day Road is published by Viking Canada and available at Amazon.ca (www.amazon.ca).
Joining Boyden as 2005 First Novel Award finalists were Howard Akler for The City Man (Coach House), Brenda Brooks for Gotta Find Me an Angel (Raincoast Books), Kathryn Kuitenbrouwer for The Nettle Spinner (Goose Lane Editions), Anne Giardini for The Sad Truth About Happiness (HarperCollins) and B. Glen Rotchin for The Rent Collector (Véhicule Press). All five finalists were presented with Amazon.ca gift certificates in the amount of $750 at the event.
W.P. Kinsella, the 1982 First Novel Award winner for his book Shoeless Joe, once again served as preliminary judge for the award, selecting the six finalists. Also serving as judges were Brian Fawcett, a Toronto-based author of 11 books including Virtual Clearcut: Or, The Way Things Are In My Home Town, which won the 2004 Pearson Prize for non-fiction and was called "one of the best non-fiction books to ever come out of this country"; Terry Rigelhof, contributing book reviewer for the The Globe and Mail and author of eight books, including a memoir entitled Nothing Sacred: A Journey Beyond Belief, which was named one of the three best books on religion in 2004 by Independent Publishers; and Priscila Uppal, professor of Humanities at York University, and Coordinator of their Creative Writing Program, and poet and fiction writer, including the novel The Divine Economy of Salvation (2002), published to critical acclaim by Doubleday Canada and Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill.
"Amazon.ca would like to thank and congratulate all of the talented novelists who participated in the 2005 First Novel Award process," said Mark Shumka, manager, Amazon.ca. "We continue to be inspired by the many emerging authors who embody Canada's rich and longstanding literary history, and Amazon.ca remains committed to providing a platform through which literary fans everywhere can discover their work."
Books in Canada will be accepting submissions for the 2006 First Novel Award until December 31, 2006.
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