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The Charles Taylor Prize

The Charles Taylor Prize commemorates Charles Taylor's pursuit of excellence in the field of literary non-fiction. The Prize is awarded annually to the author whose book best combines a superb command of the English language, an elegance of style, and a subtlety of thought and perception. The prize was established by Noreen Taylor to honour the memory of her late husband, Charles Taylor, a former Globe and Mail correspondent, horse-breeder, and author.

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January 10, 2012 - The shortlist for the 2012 Charles Taylor Prize has been announced. They are:

Wade Davis for Into The Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest (Knopf)
Charlotte Gill for Eating Dirt: Deep Forests, Big Timber, and Life with the Tree-Planting Tribe (Greystone Books)
JJ Lee for The Measure of a Man: The Story of a Father, a Son, and a Suit (McClelland and Stewart)
Madeline Sonik for Afflictions & Depatures: Essays (Anvil Press)
Andrew Westoll for The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A Canadian Story of Resilience and Recovery (HarperCollins Canada).

2011 Winner

MORDECAI: THE LIFE AND TIMES meets the immense challenge of writing about one of Canada’s most talented and controversial authors. Charles Foran has created a rich and compelling portrait of the man and his times. Charles Foran is the author of eight previous books, including the award-winning work The Last House of Ulster, and documentaries for CBC Radio. He holds degrees from the University of Toronto and University College Dublin and has taught at universities in China, Hong Kong, and Canada. He lives in Peterborough, Ontario.

2011 Finalists

ON THE FARM: ROBERT PICKTON AND THE TRAGIC STORY OF VANCOUVER’S MISSING WOMEN is a powerful investigation into one of Canada’s most horrific crimes. With characteristic thoroughness, Stevie Cameron reveals not only the nightmarish events at the Pickton farm, but also their larger social context. Stevie Cameron is a successful author, investigative journalist, commentator and humanitarian. Winner of the Crime Writers of Canada Arthur Ellis Award, and known for bringing scandals to the public eye, her passions for writing, uncovering and dissecting the stories of the day have earned her acclaim as one of Canada's foremost journalists. She lives in Toronto.

DEFIANT SPIRITS: THE MODERNIST REVOLUTION OF THE GROUP OF SEVEN is a fresh and immediately authoritative study of a Canadian cultural icon. Ross King’s accomplishment is to place the historic details of the Group’s working lives into an international context. Ross King is the author of three books on Italian history and art; two novels; and The Judgment of Paris, a study of French Impressionism which won the Governor General’s Literary Award and was shortlisted for The Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Non-Fiction. He has also been nominated for a National Book Critics’ Circle Award and the National Award for Arts Writing.

THE GEOGRAPHY OF ARRIVAL is a lyrical memoir of an immigrant family’s daily lives in London, Ontario. George Sipos takes us on a journey through physical and emotional geographies, and makes the ordinary extraordinary. George Sipos was born in Budapest, grew up in London, Ontario, and has since lived in British Columbia. Formerly the owner of Mosquito Books in Prince George, he now lives on Salt Spring Island. He is the author of Anything But the Moon, which was shortlisted for the Dorothy Livesay Poetry Prize in 2006, and of The Glassblowers.

THE LOVE QUEEN OF MALABAR: MEMOIR OF A FRIENDSHIP WITH KAMALA DAS is an idiosyncratic account of an unusual cross-cultural friendship between a Canadian documentary filmmaker and a celebrated, controversial Indian poet. Merrily Weisbord successfully captures the contradictory complexity of their dialogue. Merrily Weisbord is an award-winning author, journalist, filmmaker, and broadcaster. Her books include Our Future Selves, The Strangest Dream, The Valour and the Horror, and Dogs With Jobs, for which Weisbord also wrote and created a TV series that aired on the Life Network, CBC, PBS, Oxygen, National Geographic US and National Geographic International.