The 91Ô´´ Press
TORONTO — Sooke-based author Darrel J. McLeod is one of five nominees for this year’s Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction, a $60,000 honour recognizing a work of non-fiction by a 91Ô´´ writer.
Questions of identity are front and centre on this year’s short list and McLeod is in the running for his examination of the complexities of Indigenous identity in Peyakow: Reclaiming Cree Dignity, A Memoir, published by Douglas & McIntyre.
Other contenders include Toronto author and poet Ian Williams, who won the Giller Prize in 2019, for his form-breaking reflections on race in Disorientation: Being Black in the World, published by Random House Canada.
Also in the running is Gatineau, Que.-based Thomson Highway’s story of coming of age in a Cree-speaking family Permanent Astonishment: A Memoir, from Doubleday Canada.
Edmonton’s Jordan Abel is nominated for NISHGA, from McClelland & Stewart, about Indigenous artistry in a colonized space, while Ken Haigh of Clarksburg, Ont., is recognized for retracing medieval routes in On Foot to Canterbury: A Son’s Pilgrimage, from University of Alberta Press.
The winner will be announced at a digital ceremony on Nov. 3. Each finalist receives $5,000.