Eternity Martis, Michelle Good and Emily Hepditch win $10K Kobo Emerging Writer Prizes
The prize recognizes the best debut books by Canadians in fiction, nonfiction and genre
Eternity Martis, Michelle Good and Emily Hepditch are the winners of the 2021 Rakuten Kobo Emerging Writer Prizes.
The annual awards recognize the best books written by debut Canadian authors in three categories: nonfiction, literary fiction and the third highlighting a different genre of fiction each year.
The third category this year is mystery fiction.
The winners will each receive $10,000.
Martis won the nonfiction prize for They Said This Would Be Fun.
They Said This Would Be Fun is a memoir documenting Martis' experience in the predominantly white college city of London, Ont., as a Black woman. What she discovers is an entitled culture of racism and sexism. Her memoir captures the work students of colour must do to fight for themselves in spaces where they are supposed to be safe to learn and grow.
Martis is a journalist, author and former senior editor at Xtra living in Toronto. Her work has been featured in CBC, Vice, The Walrus and more.
"It moved me to tears almost as often as it made me laugh, think and pause to admire the beautiful writing that leaps off the e-page — sometimes with joy, other times with deep but meaningful sadness," said this year's nonfiction judge Kamal Al-Solaylee in a statement.
"They Said This Would Be Fun is essential reading for anyone invested in the future of Canada and its next generation of storytellers."
Five Little Indians by Good won the literary fiction prize.
Five Little Indians chronicles the quest of five residential school survivors to come to terms with their past and find a way forward. Released after years of detention, five teens find their way to the seedy and foreign world of Downtown Eastside Vancouver, where they cling together, striving to find a place of safety and belonging in a world that doesn't want them.
Good is a Cree writer and lawyer who is a member of Red Pheasant Cree Nation in Saskatchewan.
Five Little Indians also won the 2021 Amazon First Novel Award and the 2020 Governor General's Literary Award for fiction. It is being adapted into a limited TV series.
"Five Little Indians is a novel that people will be reading, and taking to their hearts, for decades to come," Jennifer Robson, the literary fiction judge, said in a statement.
"Reading from the perspective of a settler, I was humbled and profoundly moved by Ms. Good's characters, the injustices they endured, the weight of the lasting trauma inflicted upon them, and the courage, dignity and fortitude of the survivors among them."
The mystery prize was awarded to Hepditch's The Woman in the Attic.
The Woman in the Attic is a claustrophobic psychological thriller set on the coast of rural Newfoundland. When Hannah Fitzgerald returns to the lonely saltbox house — her childhood home — to prepare her mother for the transition into assisted living, she discovers a trap door to the house's attic and a mysterious bedroom riddled with dark secrets.
Hepditch is an author from Mount Pearl, N.L. The Woman in the Attic also won the NL Reads competition and the province's title of must-read novel of 2021.
"A modern thriller with gothic touches, The Woman in the Attic ends on such a propulsive note that I found myself reading the final pages over and over again," said this year's mystery judge, Amy Stuart, in a statement.
"With this truly surprising mystery under her belt, I can't wait to read what Emily Hepditch conjures up next."
The 2020 winners were From The Ashes by Jesse Thistle, Frying Plantain by Zalika Reid-Benta and Different Beasts by J.R. McConvey.
