OLA Announces 2022 Evergreen Award Nominees

The Ontario Library Association’s (OLA) Forest of Reading, known for their prestigious literary awards for KidLit and Young Adult books, also awards an annual adult book prize (open to both fiction and nonfiction), which draws on library workers' expertise in choosing the most remarkable work for prose written for adults in that year.

The Evergreen Award winner will be announced in late October 2022. The list of nominees is eclectic, with titles from acclaimed author and activist Amanda Leduc, award-winning US-based novelist Rivka Galchen, controversial attorney Marie Henein, iconic playwright and novelist Tomson Highway, and more. 

The 2022 nominees for the Evergreen Award are:

• The Captive: A Novel by Fiona King Foster (HarperCollins Publishers)
• The Centaur’s Wife by Amanda Leduc (Random House Canada)
• Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen (Harper Perennial)
• Murder on the Inside: The True Story of the Deadly Riot at Kingston Penitentiary by Catherine Fogarty (Biblioasis)
• Nothing But The Truth: A Memoir by Marie Henein (Signal)
• Permanent Astonishment: A Memoir by Tomson Highway (Doubleday Canada)
• Shadow Life by Hiromi Goto, Illustrated by Ann Xu (First Second)
• Speak, Silence by Kim Echlin (Hamish Hamilton Canada)
• Swimming Back to Trout River by Linda Rui Feng (Simon & Schuster Canada)
• A Town Called Solace by Mary Lawson (Knopf Canada)

Erin Kernohan-Berning, Chair of the Evergreen Award Selection Committee, praised the breadth of Canadian storytelling, saying "By the time we narrow the list down to the final ten, we are choosing from our favourite books of the year — and this year, there were many favourites. It is always exciting to see what our readers will think, and what book they will vote for as their favourite."

The Evergreen Award program is a perfect way for public libraries and book clubs to engage with best titles in Canadian fiction and non-fiction. It is one of ten programs that form the OLA’s Forest of Reading, Canada’s largest recreational reading program of its kind with over 270,000 Canadians participating each year.

A committee of library professionals chooses the nominated titles for the Evergreen Award. Readers can submit their votes for the award during September and the winner will be announced during Ontario Public Library Week in October.

Participate in the Evergreen Award program and register for the Forest of Reading today. Check out the Forest of Reading Facebook page and follow us on Twitter @ForestofReading.