Boy in the Moon wins Trillium Book Award
Last Updated: Thursday, June 24, 2010 | 1:32 PM ET
CBC News
The Boy in the Moon, by Toronto writer Ian Brown, now has a trio of Canadian literary awards. (Random House Canada) Ian Brown's personal tale about life with his disabled son, The Boy in the Moon, has won the Trillium Book Award, Ontario's top prize for literary excellence.
The moving story of Brown's 13-year-old son, Walker, born with the genetic condition cardiofaciocutaneous syndrome, has already taken the $25,000 Charles Taylor Prize for non-fiction and the $40,000 B.C. Book Prize.
In an interview with CBC's The National earlier this year, Brown described his son as having a life of "huge challenges and small triumphs."
"If Walker is so insubstantial, why does he feel so important? What is he trying to show me?" Brown said, reading from the book. "All I really want to know is what goes on inside his off-shaped head, in his jumped-up heart. But every time I ask, he somehow persuades me to look into my own."
Toronto-based writer and broadcaster Brown was named winner of the $20,000 Trillium Award in Toronto on Thursday.
The winner for the best book in French was Ryad Assani-Razaki for Deux Cercles, a debut short story collection that deals with issues of immigration and alienation. Assani-Razaki was born in Benin in West Africa and is now based in Toronto.
Karen Solie, the Toronto-based poet who won the Griffin Poetry Prize earlier this month for Pigeon, was named winner of the Trillium Book Award for poetry for the same collection.
A native of Saskatchewan, Solie was previously nominated for a Trillium Award for her second book, Modern and Normal.
The winner for poetry in French was Michèle Matteau for her first poetry collection Passerelles.
Matteau is a novelist, poet and playwright. The first novel in her À ta santé, la vie! trilogy, titled Cognac et Porto, won the 2001 Trillium Book Award.
Share Tools
Latest Toronto News Headlines
- Truck dangles on overpass after 401 crash in Ajax
- A section of Highway 401 is closed for hours after a tractor-trailer collides with an SUV, slides off the highway and hangs perilously over the roadway below. more »
- GO Transit train damaged by debris on tracks
- A GO Transit train is damaged after striking a short track section that appears to have been deliberately laid over the rails. more »
- Everest team unable to bring down Toronto woman's body
- Bad weather has hampered the recovery team that is attempting to bring down the body of a Toronto woman who died trying to climb Mt. Everest. more »
- Man shot dead in Oshawa
- A man in is mid-30s is dead after he was shot at a house in Oshawa on Friday night. more »
Top News Headlines
- Teen struck by lightning in Ottawa dies
- The victim of a Friday lightning strike during a storm in east Ottawa has died, CBC News has learned. more »
- Montreal protesters march in peaceful defiance
- The clanging of pots and pans sounded throughout Montreal's downtown core Saturday night and into early Sunday morning, as thousands of protesters marched on in peaceful — but loud — defiance of Bill 78. more »
- Syrian children massacred by the dozens, UN says
- More than 90 people have been killed by regime forces in a district of central Syria, with the head of the UN team in the country confirming at least 32 children and 60 adults were killed in an artillery attack. more »
- Missing Winnipeg children found in Mexico
- Two Winnipeg children reported missing and possibly in Mexico have been found alive, according to unofficial reports from an agency that works to find missing people. more »
- Truck dangles on overpass after 401 crash in Ajax
- Everest victim's husband says family not seeking government help
- Brampton family seeks woman missing since Thursday
- GO Transit train damaged by debris on tracks
- Everest team unable to bring down Toronto woman's body
- 'Save me' last words of Mount Everest climber
- Timmins fire crews aided by calmer winds
- Man shot dead in Oshawa
- Serial carjacker gets life term for fatal crash

