Playwright, novelist and translator Fanny Britt won the Governor General’s Literary Award from the Canada Council for the Arts for Make the sugars, in the Novels and short stories category.
Fanny Britt told us over the phone her surprise and disbelief when she heard the news. “Already, the nomination had delighted me. I said to myself: that’s all I needed; just that pat on the back was really great to receive. So winning is almost too much! “
Published in October 2020 in the August Horse, Make the sugars is Fanny Britt’s second novel, after The houses, which is in addition to the many plays, children’s books and essays that she has signed. It explores the question of privilege, comfort and happiness through the story of a couple, Adam and Marion, of a young girl – Celia – who lives in Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, of a family who owns a maple grove in Oka and an English choirmaster in Hudson.
” [En remportant ce prix], I felt liberated from my own ambition. I feel very outsider in the middle of the novel […], like I don’t really belong there, because I really feel more like a theater person. “
In all subjectivity [de l’attribution des prix] and while knowing how fragile it is, despite everything, it is as if this award gave me permission not only to continue, but above all to be free: I will no longer be pursued by the idea of ‘write to be recognized.
Fanny britt
“With a price like that, it’s literally time that is given to us to write and to relieve ourselves of the worries of everyday life”, estimates Fanny Britt, while the idea of a third novel has already germinated in her mind. . “I didn’t start writing because I’m caught up in other theater and translation projects, among others, but for several months now, there are like notes being taken and I find myself thinking about them often. “, she says.
The other finalists in the Novels and Short stories category were I showed all my white paws, I don’t have any anymore, by Sylvie Laliberté, Metallic black, by Sébastien Chabot, Nothing at all, by Olivia Tapiero, and Everything is ori, by Paul Serge Forest.
A posthumous award for Serge Bouchard
In the Essay category, this is the title Diesel in the veins, by Serge Bouchard and Mark Fortier, who was chosen. Released by Lux in April, the book is a revised version, with the contribution of the editor Mark Fortier, of the doctoral thesis of the anthropologist, author and radio man Serge Bouchard, who died on May 11. latest.
PHOTO ALAIN ROBERGE, PRESS ARCHIVES
Serge Bouchard (pictured), along with Mark Fortier, won the Governor General’s Award for Diesel in the veins.
“It was his first book which will have been his last at the same time; it’s like a loop that has come full circle. In the only interview we gave together, because he was hospitalized quite quickly after the book came out, he said that if we wanted to understand his literary work, there were two books to read: the house sparrow, which is his first, and Diesel in the veins “, Underlined Mark Fortier, for whom the absence of Serge Bouchard appears” immense “since the announcement of the price.
The anthropologist looks into Diesel in the veins on the lifestyle of truckers in northern Quebec.
With his way of magnifying characters who are forgotten in society or in history […], it’s a book about much more than truckers; it is a vision of culture, of the freedom of individuals and human groups that shines through in Serge’s view of the world of trucks.
Mark Fortier, editor
The reconstruction of paradise, by Robert Lalonde, Long-term life, Isabelle Daunais, The invisible empire, by Mathieu Bélisle, and Occupy the distances, by Esther Laforce, were also finalists in the Essay category.
Prizes in seven categories
In all, 14 titles were chosen in French and English for each of the 7 categories among the 70 or so finalists for 2021.
In poetry and theater, the winners are respectively While Perceval was falling, by Tania Langlais (Les Herbes Rouges), and Shavings, by Mishka Lavigne (L’Interligne).
In children’s literature, in the text category, the winner is Jean-François Sénéchal for Avenues, published by Leméac, while the illustrated books areWho owns the clouds?, by Mario Brassard and Gérard DuBois (La Pastèque).
And finally, in the Translation category, it’s the French version of Elizabeth Smart’s poems – Poems 1938-1984 –, written by Marie Frankland and published by Éditions du Noroît, which stood out.
The winners of the Governor General’s Literary Awards are awarded $ 25,000 for their book, while the publisher receives $ 3,000 to promote it.
The unveiling of the 2020 winners had to be postponed until 1er This June due to the pandemic, this is the second announcement this year of the winners of the Governor General’s Awards, who will resume their usual pace next year.
Visit the Governor General’s Literary Awards website