Innu author Michel Jean and Afro-descendant Quebec historian Dorothy Williams are among the five winners of the 2023 Library and Archives Canada Awards, given annually to Canadians who have contributed to the creation and promotion of cultural, literary and historical heritage from the country.
Originally from the community of Mashteuiatsh, in Lac-Saint-Jean, Michel Jean is an author, news anchor, host and investigative journalist. His best-known works speak of his Innu origins and the experience of Aboriginal peoples in Canada. His novel kukum, published in 2019, tells the story of his community through the eyes of his grandmother; he won the France-Québec literary prize and was nominated for the Jacques-Lacarrière literary prize in 2020. His most recent work, Tiohtiá : kedeals with Aboriginal homelessness in Montreal while wapke is the first collection of Aboriginal anticipatory short stories published in Quebec. In 2022, Michel Jean was made a Companion of the Order of Arts and Letters of Quebec.
Dorothy Williams grew up in the black community of Little Burgundy, Montreal, before devoting herself to the history of black Canadians. His first book, titled Blacks in Montreal, 1628-1986: An Essay in Urban Demography, was written in 1989 at the request of the Quebec Commission on Human Rights, which was then interested in racism in the Montreal rental housing market. She has since multiplied books and teachings aimed at deconstructing myths and received ideas concerning the history of Blacks in Montreal. She was the first Canadian to win the prestigious E. -J. -Josey of the American Library Association, in addition to receiving the 2002 Quebec Prize for Citizenship. Last year, the Afromusée – Quebec’s first museum dedicated to Blacks – dedicated its inaugural exhibition to her to thank her for having made the history of Blacks in Quebec known to the world.
Other recipients of Library and Archives Canada awards this year are Indian-born Alberta novelist Anita Rau Badami, Ottawa-based digital artist Eric Chan, better known as eepmon, and playwright, actor and director Kevin Loring, a member of the Nlaka’pamux First Nation, whose lands lie between Vancouver and Kamloops, British Columbia.