Awards / The QWF Literary Awards

The Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction

2019 submissions closed

Submissions are closed. The shortlist will be announced in mid-October.

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2018

Winner
In Praise of Blood (Random House Canada) by  Judi Rever

shortlisted

Policing Black Lives: State Violence In Canada from Slavery to the Present (Fernwood Publishing) by  Robyn Maynard
Sitting Shiva on Minto Avenue, by ‘Toots’ (New Star Books) by  Erín Moure

Jury

Nigel Hunt (Toronto)
Marcello Di Cintio (Calgary)
Anne Lagacé Dowson (Montreal)

2017

Winner
Out Standing in the Field: A Memoir by Canada’s First Female Infantry Officer (Cormorant Books) by  Sandra Perron

shortlisted

Tax, Order, and Good Government: A New Political History of Canada, 1867 – 1917 (McGill-Queen's University Press) by  E.A. Heaman
The Commander: Fawzi al-Qawuqji and the Fight for Arab Independence, 1914 – 1948 (Farrar, Straus and Giroux) by  Laila Parsons

Jury

Chris Frey
Rod MacLeod
Rebecca Margolis

2016

Winner
A Field Guide to Lies: Critical Thinking in the Information Age (Allen Lane Canada, Penguin Random House Canada) by  Daniel J. Levitin

shortlisted

Shanghai Grand (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd) by  Taras Grescoe
Indigenous Writes (HighWater Press (an imprint of Portage & Main Press)) by  Chelsea Vowel

Jury

Andrea Bennett
Peter Knegt
Taylor Lambert

2015

Winner
Teaching Plato in Palestine: Philosophy in a Divided World (Princeton University Press) by  Carlos Fraenkel

shortlisted

The Permanent Nature of Everything: A Memoir (McGill-Queen's University Press) by  Judith Cowan
Boundless (House of Anansi Press) by  Kathleen Winter

2014

Winner
The Morning After: The 1995 Quebec Referendum and the Day that Almost Was (Knopf Canada) by  Chantal Hébert with Jean Lapierre

shortlisted

The Bells of Memory (Linda Leith Publishing) by  Issa J. Boullata
The Alzheimer Conundrum: Entanglements of Dementia and Aging (Princeton University Press) by  Margaret Lock

Jury

Lars Lih
George Sipos
Felix von Geyer

2013

Winner
The Book of Immortality (Doubleday Canada) by  Adam Leith Gollner

shortlisted

Slouching Towards Sirte (Baraka Books) by  Maximillian Forte
The Water Here is Never Blue (Viking Canada) by  Shelagh Plunkett

2012

Winner
Straphanger (HarperCollins Canada) by  Taras Grescoe

shortlisted

Fools Rule: Inside the Failed Politics of Climate Change (Alfred A. Knopf Canada) by  William Marsden
Epistolophilia: Writing the Life of Ona Šimaitė (University of Nebraska Press) by  Julija Šukys

2011

Winner
Bad Animals: A Father’s Accidental Education in Autism (Viking Canada) by  Joel Yanofsky

shortlisted

They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children (Random House Canada) by  Roméo Dallaire
The Love Queen of Malabar: Memoir of a Friendship with Kamala Das (McGill-Queen's University Press) by  Merrily Weisbord

2010

Winner
Global Warring (Key Porter Books) by  Cleo Paskal

shortlisted

A Place in Mind: the Search for Authenticity (Véhicule Press) by  Avi Friedman
Done with Slavery (McGill-Queen's University Press) by  Frank Mackey

2009

Winner
The Cello Suites (House of Anansi Press) by  Eric Siblin

shortlisted

The Black book of Canadian (Fernwood Publishing) by  Yves Engler
Idiocy: A Cultural History (Liverpool University Press) by  Patrick McDonagh

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