Niigaan Sinclair, Jordan Abel among winners of Governor General's Literary Awards

When Niigaan Sinclair pitched his collection of articles to a Toronto publisher, he was told "Winipek: Visions of Canada from an Indigenous Centre" was a "regional book."

The Winnipeg-based Anishinaabe columnist and editor recalls being told to expect scant attention outside major urban centres, so he wasn't surprised to see "like 80 per cent" of his sales come from Manitoba, northwestern Ontario and Saskatchewan.

But on Wednesday, Sinclair was assured the book had indeed resonated well beyond its geographical setting, winning the Governor General's Literary Award for non-fiction.

"They didn't even do book launches for me in the rest of the country. And then boom, this all kind of hits. I think the country's responded," Sinclair says from Winnipeg in a video call.

Sinclair makes an estimable list announced Wednesday morning that includes fiction winner Jordan Abel of Edmonton for the allegorical novel "Empty Spaces," and poetry winner Chimwemwe Undi of Winnipeg for "Scientific Marvel."

Abel, a queer Nisga'a writer from Vancouver, says he suspected the unusual approach he took for his debut novel would pose a barrier to some audiences. "Empty Spaces" contains no characters nor dialogue in its examination of Indigenous relationships with lands, displacement and diaspora. Winning the fiction prize put those concerns to rest.

"This award is incredibly affirming, you know, in that (this book has) done good things in the world, people are interested in it. Not everyone's afraid of the difficulty and that's a really good feeling," Abel says from Edmonton, where he's an associate professor in English at the University of Alberta.

"All writing is political, and I think this book is deeply political. So I was hoping for that, or at least hoping for an opening of a conversation. And it is tough from an author's perspective to figure out whether or not that happens but I hope that it has and that there are conversations that continue out of this book."

While on the surface he says "Empty Spaces" can be described as an Indigenous response to James Fenimore Cooper's "The Last of the Mohicans," he says it explores an argument posited by author Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz that Cooper's book was instrumental in nullifying the guilt related to Indigenous peoples in America, and is the backbone of U.S. nationalism.

It's a timely idea, given the hateful rhetoric leading up to and surrounding the most recent U.S. presidential election, notes Abel.

"The work in 'Empty Spaces' is not disconnected from the current political climate in America. I can absolutely see the two in conversation with each other," says Abel.

The Canada Council for the Arts announced winners across seven categories, in both official languages.

The writers, translators and illustrators of winning books get $25,000 and finalists receive $1,000 each. Publishers of winning books get $3,000 to promote them.

The drama prize went to "There Is Violence and There Is Righteous Violence and There Is Death, or the Born-Again Crow," by Calgary's Caleigh Crow, while the French-to-English translation prize went to "Nights Too Short to Dance" by Katia Grubisic of Montreal (Second Story Press); a translation of "Un cœur habite de mille voix" by Marie-Claire Blais.

In the categories for young people's literature, the text award went to "Crash Landing" by Li Charmaine Anne of New Westminster, B.C. (Annick Press), while the illustrated books prize went to "Skating Wild on an Inland Sea" by Jean E. Pendziwol of Thunder Bay, Ont., and Todd Stewart of Montreal (Groundwood Books, House of Anansi).

Sinclair, too, hopes his book can spark conversation over efforts to address Indigenous injustice and violence in "Winipek" -- a region that extends beyond Winnipeg to encompass the watershed and parts of other provinces.

"There's other places that are doing important work but the most critical issue is being addressed daily here -- not so much in Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa," says Sinclair, a professor in the Native Studies department at University of Manitoba.

"The kind of front line of Canada has always been Winipek -- this territory right here, the first province, first treaty."

Sinclair says the vast majority of the articles in his book were originally written between 2018 and 2023, although some date as far back as 2009. He says much has changed in those intervening years, most notably a growing attention and interest in Indigenous writing overall -- such as those by Abel, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew and that of his late father Murray Sinclair, chief commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools.

"There has been a massive amount of interest and engagement. I think the level of the competency of the country has risen," he says.

At the same time, he's detected a "very vociferous" and "very vocal minority" of residential school denialists.

"It's no coincidence that just at the moment that Indigenous Peoples are being listened to there is an equal and opposite force that then begins to say, 'Don't listen to them,"' he says.

"There's never needed to be a force that said, 'Don't listen to them,' because that's how the society ran."

   This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 13, 2024.