Mona Awad Wins the Amazon.ca First Novel Award for 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl

Last night at a reception in Toronto, Mona Awad was awarded the Amazon.ca First Novel Award. This year was a special occasion — it is the 40th anniversary of the award (which has been sponsored by Amazon.ca for the past ten years), and in honour of the anniversary, the prize purse was increased to $40,000.

Awad's novel, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl (Penguin Canada), was selected from a strong, six-title shortlist. The book tells the story of Lizzie, growing up in Mississauga and deeply dissatisfied with the way she looks. Praised for its humour, frankness, and insightful skewering of our cultural obsession with perfection, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl deeply impressed judges Russell Brown, Gurjinder Basran, and Nick Mount.

The prize reception was hosted by Amazon.ca and The Walrus magazine, with CBC's Shelagh Rogers presenting.

The remaining shortlisted authors, each of whom were awarded $4,000 in recognition of the excellence of their work, were Elizabeth Philips for The Afterlife of Birds (Freehand Books), Mark Giles for Seep (Anvil Press), Judith McCormack for Backspring (Biblioasis), Aaron Cully Drake for Do You Think This is Strange? (Touchwood Editions), and Karim Alrawi for Book of Sands (HarperCollins).

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the prize, Amazon.ca is offering a 40% discount on all of the shortlisted novels for this year’s Amazon.ca First Novel Award.