Longlist announced for Canada's largest award for Non-Fiction

VANCOUVER, Nov. 9 /CNW/ - The jury for Canada's largest literary non-fiction prize, the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction, has released its longlist for 2010. One hundred and forty-nine titles were nominated for the $40,000 prize by publishers from across the country. The jury panel has selected the following longlist of 11 books.

    
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    Longlist for the fifth annual BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction
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    Title                             Author            Publisher
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    Burmese Lessons: A Love Story     Karen Connelly    Random House Canada
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    Coal Black Heart: The Story of    John DeMont       Doubleday Canada
    Coal and the Lives it Ruled
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    Egg On Mao: The Story of an       Denise Chong      Random House Canada
    Ordinary Man who Defaced an Icon
    and Unmasked a Dictatorship
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    Not Yet: A Memoir of Living       Wayson Choy       Doubleday Canada
    and Almost Dying
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    Small Beneath the Sky: A          Lorna Crozier     Greystone Books
    Prairie Memoir
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    The Boy in the Moon: A Father's   Ian Brown         Random House Canada
    Search for His Disabled Son
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    The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach,      Eric Siblin       House of Anansi Press
    Pablo Casals, and the Search for
    a Baroque Masterpiece
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    The Dog by the Cradle, the        Erika Ritter      Key Porter Books
    Serpent Beneath: Some Paradoxes
    of Human - Animal Relationships
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    The Ice Passage: A True Story of  Brian Payton      Doubleday Canada
    Ambition, Disaster, and Endurance
    in the Arctic Wilderness
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    The Uncrowned King: The           Kenneth Whyte     Vintage Canada
    Sensational Rise of William
    Randolph Hearst
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    Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of   Brian Brett       Greystone Books
    Rural Life
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Jury Chair Andreas Schroeder notes: "Canada's non-fiction writers have always been among the most compelling participants in our national conversation, and the outstanding titles on this year's longlist for BC's National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction provide proof positive that this conversation continues to be vital, fascinating, and irrepressible"."

The finalists for the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction will be announced in early December. The award presentation will take place in January 2010 in Vancouver.

    
    The members of the jury for the 2010 British Columbia Award for Canadian
    Non-Fiction are:

    -   Vicki Gabereau is an award-winning radio and television personality,
        and the former host of Gabereau on CBC and Gabereau Live! On CTV. She
        is the author of a memoir, This Won't Hurt a Bit. Ms. Gabereau was
        inducted into the Canadian Association of Broadcasters Hall of Fame
        in 2006, and received a Lifetime Achievement award from the RTNDA
        Canada in 2008.

    -   Philip Marchand, author, book columnist and magazine writer. One of
        Canada's best-known commentators on books, Mr. Marchand was the book
        columnist for the Toronto Star for eighteen years and since 2008 for
        the National Post. Mr. Marchand has written the biography, Marshall
        McLuhan, and Ripostes: Reflections on Canadian Literature.

    -   Andreas Schroeder, author, television and radio host, and holder of
        the Rogers Communications Chair in Creative Non-fiction at UBC. Mr.
        Schroeder has written 21 books, published in most of Canada's major
        magazines and newspapers, and served as a long-time contributor to
        CBC Radio's "Basic Black Show". His latest book is an
        autobiographical novel entitled Renovating Heaven.

    Previous winners for the BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction
    include:
    -   Russell Wangersky for Burning Down the House (2009)
    -   Lorna Goodison for From Harvey River (2008)
    -   Noah Richler for This Is My Country, What's Yours? (2007)
    -   Rebecca Godfrey for Under the Bridge (2006)
    -   Patrick Lane for There Is a Season (2005)
    

The BC National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction is presented by the British Columbia Achievement Foundation, an independent foundation established and endowed by the Province of British Columbia to celebrate excellence in the arts, humanities, enterprise and community service.

For more information on the British Columbia Award for Canadian Non-Fiction and on submission guidelines, please visit www.bcachievement.com.

For further information: Nora Newlands, British Columbia Achievement Foundation, [phone], www.bcachievement.com