A biography of pioneering feminist and socialist Dorise Nielsen has won four awards, including book of the year, at the Manitoba Writing and Publishing Awards.

A Great Restlessness: The Life and Politics of Dorise Nielsen is the first book by Faith Johnston, a former Ottawa teacher.

Johnston was one of 10 writers honoured Saturday night in Winnipeg at Brave New Words, the gala awards ceremony hosted by the Manitoba Writers' Guild and Association of Manitoba Book Publishers.

A Great Restlessness won a combined $11,000 in prize money for book of the year, best book by a Manitoba publisher, best non-fiction book and best first book by a Manitoba writer.

It documents the remarkable life of Nielsen, a homesteader's wife who struggled through the Depression in rural Saskatchewan, began working against poverty with the CCF and became the first Communist elected to the House of Commons in 1940. She moved to Mao's China in 1957, and watched communism there take an ugly turn.

For the first year, the awards ceremony included a prize for Manitoba poets, the $1,000 Lansdowne Prize for Poetry.

Laurie Block of Brandon, Man., won the award for Time Out of Mind. Block is author of another poetry collection, Foreign Graces/Bendiciones Ajenas, and also has written plays and short stories.

The $3,500 Margaret Laurence Award for fiction went to Melissa Steele for Beautiful Girl Thumb, a collection of short stories.

Serena Keshavjee, a University of Winnipeg professor and editor of Winnipeg Modern: Architecture 1945 to 1975, won the $5,000 Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award. Keshavjee is also curator of the recent Manitoba Modernist Architecture exhibit at the Winnipeg Art Gallery.

Other winners were:

  • Best book for young people (older category): Lost Treasures: True Stories of Discovery by Larry Verstraete.
  • Best book for young people (younger category): Raising a Little Stink by Colleen Sydor.
  • Most promising Manitoba writer: young adult writer Anita Daher, author of Flight from Big Tangle, Flight from Bear Canyon, Racing for Diamonds and Spider's Song.
  • Prix Littéraire Rue-Deshambault: Manguiers Têtus by Bathélemy Bolivar.
  • Book design of the year: Going Downtown: A History of Winnipeg's Portage Avenue, by Relish Design Studio Inc.
  • Best illustrated book of the year: Early Masters: Inuit Sculpture 1949-1955, photos by Ernest Mayer, interior and cover by Frank Reimer.