Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize Finalists

Clark Blaise (Canada/USA) is the author of 20 books of fiction and non-fiction. A longtime advocate for the literary arts in North America, he has taught writing and literature at many institutions across the United States. Internationally recognized for his contributions to his field, he has received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and in 2010 was made an Officer of the Order of Canada. Longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, Blaise presents his new collection of Indo-American Canterbury Tales, The Meagre Tarmac, which explores the places where tradition, innovation, culture, and power meet with explosive force.

Michael Christie received his Masters of Fine Art in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia. Prior to this, he worked in a homeless shelter in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and provided outreach to people with severe mental illness. He is currently a senior writer for Color Magazine, an award-winning skateboarding/art publication. Gritty and powerful, Christie’s debut short story collection, The Beggar’s Garden, a finalist for the Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize, contains nine linked stories that follow a diverse group of characters including a bank manager, a mental patient and a car thief as they drift in and out of each other’s lives.

Patrick deWitt is the author of two novels, Ablutions and The Sisters Brothers. He grew up in Vancouver and currently lives in Oregon with his wife and son. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, deWitt presents The Sisters Brothers, a violent, lustful odyssey through the underworld of the 1850s frontier capturing the humour, melancholy and grit of the Old West and two brothers bound by blood, violence and love.

Esi Edugyan has degrees from the University of Victoria and Johns Hopkins University. Her work has appeared in several anthologies, including Best New American Voices 2003. Her debut novel, The Second Life of Samuel Tyne, was published internationally to critical acclaim. Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, Edugyan presents Half Blood Blues, an entrancing and electric story about jazz, race, love, loyalty, and the sacrifices we ask of ourselves, and demand of others, in the name of art.

Lawrence Hill is the author of six books including the novels Any Known Blood and Some Great Thing, and the non-fiction national bestseller Black Berry, Sweet Juice: On Being Black and White in Canada. In June 2006, Lawrence Hill won the National Magazine Award for the best essay published in Canada in 2005 for Is Africa’s Pain Black America’s Burden. His latest novel, The Book of Negroes, was longlisted for the 2007 Scotiabank Giller Prize and shortlisted for the 2008 Commonwealth Writers' Prize for Best Book (Canada and The Caribbean).

Rabindranath Maharaj (Canada/Trinidad) is a novelist, short story writer and a founding editor of the literary journal Lichen. His novel The Amazing Absorbing Boy won the 2010 Trillium Book Award.

Dan Vyleta was born in Germany, completed a Ph.D. in history at the University of Cambridge and now lives and works in eastern Canada. His debut novel, Pavel & I, has been published in 13 countries and translated into eight languages. He is also the author of Crime, Jews and News: Vienna 1895-1914. Vyleta’s second novel, The Quiet Twin, takes readers to Nazi-occupied Vienna, where a string of unsolved murders has thrown the residents of one apartment building into a state of uneasy watchfulness.