The Governor General's Award

1998 Governor General's Award Winners

Northwest Passages congratulates all the winners for the 1998 Governor General's Literary Awards!

The following is a complete list of all the winners, sorted by category, along with the respective jury's comments on each nominated book. Between now and December 24th, all of these titles will be 15% off!

Fiction (English):

Diane Schoemperlen, Kingston, Ontario, for Forms of Devotion (HarperCollins, ISBN 0-00-224566-3)
A witty and brilliant collection of stories. The author's delicate, playful approach to faith or the lack of it in our lives is the work of a major literary talent at the top of her craft. A virtuoso performance. The elegant and scintillating writing in this collection is enriched by the selection of wood engravings and line drawings from earlier centuries. A book that can be read and reread many times for pleasure and stimulation.

Fiction (French)

Christiane Frenette, Lévis, Quebec, for La Terre ferme (Éditions du Boréal; distributed by Diffusion Dimedia) (ISBN 2-89052-844-8)
Despite the regional setting, Frenette's novel is a universal work. The subject of La Terre ferme is the way in which an entire town copes with loss and mourning. The tone is quietly solemn and meditative throughout, and the structure is absolutely flawless.

Poetry (English):

Stephanie Bolster, Ottawa, for White Stone: The Alice Poems (Signal Editions/Véhicule Press, ISBN 1-55065-099-8)
White Stone: The Alice Poems was judged the best book of poetry in 1998 for as many reasons as there are poems in this powerful sequence, but due primarily to Stephanie Bolster's ability to depict the emotional life of Alice Liddell as girl and woman in brilliant narrative juxtapositions. She uses her lyrical powers to present Alice the creation and Alice the person in a cultural context that, on one level, re-examines cognition and dissociation and on another liberates the poetic sequence from the monotony of story and closure.

Poetry (French)

Suzanne Jacob, Outremont, Quebec, for La Part de feu preceded by Le Deuil de la rancune (Éditions du Boréal, ISBN 2-89052-872-3)
Suzanne Jacob comes through the fire in a text composed of stormy waves of language, incessant, resonant, a vast uprising of images. The result is a world of flashes and fissures that enchants us in its breadth and its multiple directions and inventions. Suzanne Jacob practices the art of risk, shaking perceptions in a new way of looking at the world, and her voice shines through the spheres, somewhere between genesis and apocalypse. The desolation of disappearance. This remarkably true and dazzling book was the jury's unanimous choice.

Drama (English):

Djanet Sears, Toronto, for Harlem Duet (Scirocco Drama/J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing, ISBN 1-896239-27-7)
Passionate about her subject, Sears has created a theatrically ambitious fusing of the personal and the political, playing with memory, history, the day-to-day and the complexities of the male-female relationship of the Afro-American.

Drama (French):

François Archambault, Montreal, for 15 secondes (Leméac Éditeur, ISBN 2-7609-0367-2)
With its subtle dramatic structure, Archambault's play skilfully reveals the contradictions of his characters. This is everyday language, but beneath the apparent lightness of the conversations lies a wealth of social criticism and thoughtful reflection upon the issues of marginality, success, love and friendship-all with an impressive economy of means. 15 secondes is an intelligent take on the tyranny of a society obsessed with image.

Non-fiction (English):

David Adams Richards, Toronto, for Lines on the Water - A Fisherman's Life on the Miramichi (Doubleday Canada, ISBN 0-385-25696-5)
Written with extraordinary clarity and vividness, Lines on the Water is a testament to nature and humanity, revealed through the delicate art of flyfishing and one man's abiding love for a river and its people.

Non-fiction (French):

Pierre Nepveu, Montreal, for Intérieurs du Nouveau Monde: Essais sur les littératures du Québec et des Amériques (Éditions du Boréal, ISBN 2-89052-881-2)
A rich and splendid book that travels through the North American imagination, without corresponding exactly to the lyrical image of open spaces woven by the poetry of Walt Whitman, revealing the position of retreat through the refuges constantly constructed by a search for the inner self. A dense and fascinating work.

Translation (French to English):

Sheila Fischman, Montreal, for Bambi and Me (Talonbooks, ISBN 0-88922-380-7)
English version of Les vues animées, by Michel Tremblay (Leméac Éditeur)
Sheila Fischman's translation of Michel Tremblay's Les vues animées offers readers a privileged view into Tremblay's complex world. Her deep understanding of both the writer and his idiom informs the appeal of her translation. Bambi and Me distills Tremblay's emotional message into a language that is supremely satisfying. A deft and masterful creation.

Translation (English to French):

Charlotte Melançon, Montreal, for Les Sources du moi - La Formation de l'identité moderne (Éditions du Boréal, ISBN 2-89052-893-6)
French version of Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity by Charles Taylor (Harvard University Press)
An excellent translation that combines faithfulness to the original text with a remarkable flexibility. Charlotte Melançon has rendered the erudition of this monumental study with clarity and concision. Her innate sense of language has enabled her to avoid the pitfalls inherent in translating this type of work.

Children's literature - text (English)

Janet Lunn, Hillier, Ontario, for The Hollow Tree (Knopf Canada, ISBN 0-394-28074-1)
An exciting and romantic historical adventure with an unforgettable heroine, 15-year-old Phoebe Olcott. In 1777 she sets off through the wilderness to carry a message to Canada, first travelling alone, then with a group of Loyalists. The author captures the period speech and setting perfectly; yet Phoebe's conflicting feelings about loyalty and war are timeless. A new Canadian classic and a unanimous choice of the jury.

Children's literature - text (French)

Angèle Delaunois, Montreal, for Variations sur un même &laqno;t'aime» (Éditions Héritage, ISBN 2-7625-8782-4)
It's great to see young people spoken to about love in terms other than those of biology, prevention or safety. Angèle Delaunois' stories present variations on the theme of love, from passion through heartbreak and tenderness, in language that is honest and rich. Through the intimacy of personal tales, she achieves the universal.

Children's literature - illustration (English):

Kady MacDonald Denton, Brandon, Manitoba, for A Child's Treasury of Nursery Rhymes (Kids Can Press, ISBN 1-55074-554-9)
A grand achievement for an accomplished illustrator and a joyful celebration of word and image. Kady MacDonald Denton's sensitive and graceful watercolours bring emotion, charm and intelligence to this valuable collection of contemporary and traditional verses.

Children's literature - illustration (French):

Pierre Pratt, Montreal, for Monsieur Ilétaitunefois, text by Rémy Simard (Annick Press, ISBN 1-55037-545-8 - bound and ISBN 1-55037-544-X - paperback)
Pierre Pratt, through the genius of his page design and powerful use of colour, draws us into a delicious story where the images complement and in some cases even improve on the text.