Jamaica-born poet Lorna Goodison, who has a home in Toronto, has won the B.C. Award for Canadian Non-Fiction for her lyrical family memoir, From Harvey River: A Memory of My Mother and Her People.

B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell presented Goodison with the $40,000 prize on Thursday at a ceremony in Vancouver.

Lorna Goodison's From Harvey River: A Memory of My Mother and Her People, is a memoir of a Jamaican family and their roots.
(McClelland & Stewart)

The prize is the largest in Canada for non-fiction.

Beaverbrook: A Shattered Legacy by CBC Radio reporter Jacques Poitras and Some Family: The Mormons and How Humanity Keeps Track of Itself by Donald Harman Akenson, who teaches at Queen's University in Kingston, Ont., were also finalists for the award.

Goodison won for writing a memoir that "evokes family history through lyrical storytelling and imagery that is both vivid and lush," jury members David Mitchell, Patrick Lane and Sandra Martin said in a release.

From Harvey River is a memoir of "a family, their roots and the memorable characters who formed them … a book that combines love and tragedy, poverty and loss in rich and authentic prose," the jury said.

The prize, now into its fourth year, is presented annually by the British Columbia Achievement Foundation, which is endowed by the province.

Campbell said it "honours the important role literary non-fiction plays in Canada.

"The best work in this genre prompts us both to think about the issues and influences shaping our country and to delight in the power of good storytelling," the premier said in a release.

Goodison has written eight books of poetry and taught at the University of Toronto. She now teaches at the University of Michigan and divides her time between Ann Arbor, Mich., and Toronto, said publisher McClelland & Stewart.