Niigaan Sinclair and Jordan Abel among winners of Governor General’s Literary Awards – Brandon Sun

When Niigaan Sinclair submitted his collection of essays to a publisher in Toronto, he was told that “Wînipêk: Canadian Visions from an Indigenous Center” was a “regional book.”

The Winnipeg-based Anishinaabe columnist and editor remembers being told to expect little traction outside major urban centres, so he wasn’t surprised to see “80 per cent” of his sales coming from Manitoba, northwestern Ontario and Saskatchewan.

But on Wednesday, Sinclair was assured that the book had indeed resonated far beyond its geographic setting and had won the Governor General’s Literary Award for nonfiction.

“They didn’t even promote the book for me in the rest of the country. And then boom, everything became very successful. I think the country responded,” Sinclair says in a video call from Winnipeg.

Sinclair has compiled a worthy list, announced Wednesday morning, that includes fiction winner Jordan Abel of Edmonton for his allegorical novel “Empty Spaces” and poetry winner Chimwemwe Undi of Winnipeg for “Scientific Marvel.”

Abel, a gay Nisga’a writer from Vancouver, says he suspects the unconventional approach he took for his debut novel would be a turn-off for some audiences. “Empty Spaces” features no characters or dialogue while examining Indigenous relationships with land, displacement, and diaspora. Winning the fiction prize eliminated these concerns.

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

“Everything that is written is political, and I think this book is extremely political. That’s what I was hoping for, or at least hoping to start a conversation. And from a writer’s perspective, it’s hard to tell if that happened, but I hope it did, and there are ongoing conversations after this book.”

Although on the surface “The Empty Spaces” could be described as an Indigenous response to James Fenimore Cooper’s “The Last of the Mohicans,” author Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz argues that Cooper’s book’s guilt about Native peoples in America is the backbone of U.S. nationalism.

Abel notes that this is a timely idea, given the hate speech leading up to and surrounding the most recent US presidential election.

“The work in ‘Empty Spaces’ is not disconnected from the current political climate in America. “I can definitely see the two of them talking to each other,” says Abel.

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

The authors, translators and illustrators of the winning books will receive $25,000, and the finalists will receive $1,000 each. Publishers of the winning books receive $3,000 to promote the books.

The drama award went to “There is Violence and There is Justified Violence and There is Death, or the Crow Reborn” by Calgary’s Caleigh Crow, while the French-to-English translation award went to “Nights Too Short to Dance.” Katia Grubisic (Second Story Press) in Montreal; Translation of “Un cœur habité de mille voix” by Marie-Claire Blais.

In the youth literature categories, the text award was given to “Crash Landing” by Li Charmaine Anne from New Westminster, BC (Annick Press), while the picture books award went to Jean E. Pendziwol from Thunder Bay, Ontario and Todd Stewart from Montréal (Groundwood Books, House of Anansi).

Sinclair, too, hopes his book can spark a discussion about efforts to address Indigenous injustice and violence in “Wînipêk,” a region that extends beyond Winnipeg to include the basin and parts of other provinces.

“There are other places doing important work, but the most critical issue is being addressed here every day, not so much in Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa,” says Sinclair, a professor in the Department of Indigenous Studies at the University of Manitoba.

“The sort of front line of Canada has always been Wînipêk; the territory here, the first province, the first treaty.”

The vast majority of the articles in his book were originally written between 2018 and 2023, but some date back to 2009, Sinclair says. Much has changed in the intervening years, he says, most importantly a growing interest and interest in Indigenous writings in general, such as those of Abel, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, and his late father, Murray Sinclair, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s chief commissioner on residential schools.

“There was intense interest and participation. I think the country’s proficiency level has increased,” he said.

He also identified a “very loud” and “very vocal” minority of residential school deniers.

“It’s no coincidence that the moment Indigenous Peoples are listened to, an equal and opposite force begins to say, ‘Don’t listen to them,’” he says.

“There is never any need for a force that says ‘Don’t listen to them’ because that’s how society works.”

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