Writers' Trust Announces Rogers Fiction Prize Shortlist including Rawi Hage's Fourth Rogers Nomination

This morning, the Writers’ Trust of Canada announced the finalists for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, recognizing authors of this year’s best novel or short story collection. 

Each finalist receives $5,000 and the winner, announced at the Writers’ Trust Awards ceremony on Wednesday, November 7, 2018, receives a total of $50,000.

The 2018 Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize shortlist:

• Craig Davidson for The Saturday Night Ghost Club, Knopf Canada
• Esi Edugyan for Washington Black, Patrick Crean Editions 
• Rawi Hage for Beirut Hellfire Society, Knopf Canada 
• Jen Neale for Land Mammals and Sea Creatures, ECW Press 
• Kathy Page for Dear Evelyn, Biblioasis 

The finalists were selected by a jury composed of authors Ann Y. K. Choi, Mireille Silcoff, and Robert Wiersema. They read 128 books submitted by 54 publishers. Two independent presses are represented on the list this year: Windsor's Biblioasis and Toronto's ECW Press.

Notable on the shortlist is Es Edugyan's Washington Black, which is proving to be the literary prize juggernaut of the year, with additional nominations so far for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the UK's Man Booker Prize. Washington Black is Edugyan's first novel since her 2011 smash hit Half-Blood Blues, which won the Giller Prize and was nominated for the Man Booker Prize, the Orange Prize for Fiction, the Governor General's Literary Award, as well as the Rogers Prize.

Like Edugyan, Rawi Hage is no stranger to the Rogers Prize shortlist, with his Beruit Hellfire Society being his fourth appearance. In fact, Hage has gone an astonishing four-for-four with the Rogers Prize, having been nominated for the prize for every novel he's written.

The Rogers Prize has a prestigious history, with past winners including Alice Munro (2004), Lawrence Hill (2007), Miriam Toews (2008 and 2014), Emma Donoghue (2010), and David Chariandy (2017). The prize has been sponsored by Rogers Communications since its inception in 1997.

You can see and meet the finalists for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize in person when they appear in conversation at the Toronto International Festival of Authors on Wednesday, October 24, 2018. Event and ticket information is available online at the TIFA website.