Newfoundland writer Kenneth J. Harvey's story of a man wrongfully convicted has won the Writers' Trust Award for fiction and U.K.-based Dragan Todorovic has won the non-fiction prize for his heartfelt lament for Yugoslavia.

The winners of the Canadian literary awards in eight categories were announced Wednesday evening in Toronto.

Kenneth Oppel has won the Vicky Metcalf Award for children's literature.
(File photo)

Harvey won the $15,000 fiction prize for Inside, which follows the progress of a man released from prison for a crime he didn't commit and trying to find his way in his old St. John's neighbourhood.

"In a world of formulaic fiction, Inside is a point-blank godsend," a judging panel said of Harvey's book, whose main character, Myrden, is faced with estranged children, an ambivalent wife and a neighbourhood that still remembers his violent past.

"It's a book about being trapped inside a family … about being able to escape your roots and what your family does to you," Harvey said in an interview on Thursday.

Myrden finds his daughter with an abusive partner and becomes determined to save his granddaughter.

"He was not aware when he was in prison of what was happening. But he asks himself 'How did I learn to love in there? Why didn't I feel this before?' " Harvey said.

The book is set in a tough Field Street neighbourhood of St. John's, where Harvey lived for a while. He is now living and writing in Burnt Head, N.L.

Other finalists in the fiction category, who each won $2,000, were Governor General's award winner Peter Behrens for The Law of Dreams, Rawi Hage for De Niro's Game, Catherine Hanrahan for Lost Girls and Love Hotels and Mary Lawson for The Other Side of the Bridge.

Todorovic, a Yugoslav who grew up under Tito loving Jimi Hendrix, won the $15,000 Writers' Trust non-fiction prize for The Book of Revenge: A Blues for Yugoslavia.

"Todorovic's writing is eloquent, poised and witty, a remarkable feat considering the writer knew only 100 words of English in 1993," the jury said.

Todorovic, transplanted to Canada in 1995, has crafted a book that's part memoir, part history, following the psychological journey travelled by former Yugoslavs as their country disintegrated.

"I had the idea all the time not to write a book about me, but about a citizen and his country," Todorovic said in a interview with CBC Arts Online on Thursday.

'Blues' lament

Todorovic said he was forced out of the country after writing negatively about former strongman Slobodan Milosevic and he does not believe it has regained any of the spirit of unity and brotherhood that characterized life under Tito.

"I have problems with both the government and the ordinary people who don't want to look back and face what they did to other people and how they behaved," he said.

That's why the book is a "blues" lament, he said.

Todorovic is living in Leamington Spa in Britain while his wife teaches and he begins work on a novel, his first. Todorovic also has written biographies of Tom Waits and Bruce Springsteen.

Other finalists in this category, who each received $2,000, were Charlotte Gray for Reluctant Genius: The Passionate Life and Inventive Mind of Alexander Graham Bell;  Barbara Kingscote for Ride the Rising Wind: One Woman's Journey Across Canada; Noah Richler for This Is My Country, What's Yours? A Literary Atlas of Canada; and Rudy Wiebe for Of This Earth: A Mennonite Boyhood in the Boreal Forest.

The $10,000 Journey Prize for short fiction was won by Heather Birrell of Toronto for BriannaSusannaAlana, a story of three sisters, published in The New Quarterly.

Other awards presented Wednesday evening:

• The $15,000 Vicky Metcalf Award for Children's Literature went to Kenneth Oppel of Toronto, author of the Silverwing and Airborn series.
• The $15,000 Timothy Findley Award for a male writer in mid-career was won by Douglas Glover of Wilton, N.Y., author of Elle and The Sun Will Rise at Noon.
• The $15,000 Marian Engel Award for a female writer in mid-career went to Caroline Adderson of Vancouver, author of Sitting Practice and Pleased to Meet You.

June Callwood, the Toronto writer and activist, was honoured with the Writers' Trust Award for Distinguished Contribution, given to an individual for long-standing involvement with the Writers' Trust.

The Writers' Trust of Canada is an organization dedicated to recognizing and supporting the talents of Canadian writers.