André Alexis named on Toronto Book Awards longlist

Acclaimed author André Alexis headlines the longlist for the 2024 Toronto Book Awards, a prize that honours books inspired by the city’s stories, settings, and spirit. This year, the award’s prize money has been doubled: $20,000 for the winner, and $2,000 for each shortlisted writer.

Alexis is recognized for Other Worlds, a short story collection that moves across geography and time—from 19th-century Trinidad and Tobago to small-town Ontario and present-day Toronto. The collection explores moments of deep mystery and quiet transformation, a hallmark of Alexis’s literary style.

Born in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, and raised in Ottawa, Alexis is a titan in Canadian literature. His debut, Childhood, won the Books in Canada First Novel Award and the Trillium Book Award, and was shortlisted for both the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize.

His critically acclaimed novel Fifteen Dogs, championed by Humble The Poet during Canada Reads, won the 2015 Giller Prize and Canada Reads in 2017. His other notable works include Pastoral, Asylum, Days by Moonlight, and Despair and Other Stories of Ottawa.

Joining Alexis on the longlist is award-winning journalist and author Tanya Talaga, whose book The Knowing delves into her family’s history and the enduring trauma caused by colonial violence. The story focuses on her great-great-grandmother Annie, a figure long shrouded in silence.

“She’s been a mystery for my entire family for over 80 years,” Talaga said on Bookends with Mattea Roach. “By looking back in our family trees, we’re going to find those people that are crying out to be found.”

The Knowing is also a four-part documentary streaming on CBC Gem. Talaga, of Anishinaabe and Polish descent, is a member of Fort William First Nation. Her previous work Seven Fallen Feathers won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing, the RBC Taylor Prize, and the First Nation Communities Read Award.

Many of the longlisted books are available in accessible formats through the Centre for Equitable Library Access.

This year’s jury includes Sam Hiyate, Sophie Jai, Wanda Nanibush, Don Oravec, and David Silverberg. The shortlist will be announced later this summer, with the winner to be revealed at a ceremony in Toronto on October 15.

2024 Toronto Book Awards Longlist: Encampment – Maggie Helwig; Unlike The Rest – Chika Stacey Oriuwa; Shadow Price – Farah Ghafoor; The Migrant Rain Falls in Reverse – Vinh Nguyen; Other Worlds – André Alexis; Nobody Asked For This – Georgia Toews; Story of Your Mother – Chantal Braganza;

All the Parts We Exile – Roza Nozari; Widow Fantasies – Hollay Ghadery; The Knowing – Tanya Talaga;

The Immortal Woman – Su Chang; and Anne of the Library-on-the-Hill – Catherine Little.

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