Canadian Press reports lots of historians on the 2016 shortlist for the J.W Dafoe Book Prize in nonfiction:
- Antony Anderson, The Diplomat: Lester Pearson and the Suez Crisis, (Goose Lane).
- Norman Hillmer, O.D. Skelton: A Portrait of Canadian Ambition (University of Toronto Press).
- Gordon Laxer, After the Sands: Energy and Ecological Security for Canadians, (Douglas and McIntyre) .
- David Mulroney, Middle Power, Middle Kingdom: What Canadians Need to Know About China in the 21st Century (Penguin Canada).
- Greg Poelzer and Ken S. Coates, From Treaty Peoples to Treaty Nation: A Road Map for All Canadians (University of British Columbia Press).
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The Dafoe Prize is given by the J.W. Dafoe Foundation since 1984 for "good, non-fiction writing about Canada, Canadians and the nation in international affairs." The 2016 winner ($10,000) will be announced in May
The Dafoe Prize may have been overshadowed a bit in recent years by more promoted nonfiction prizes. Indeed, J.W. Dafoe (1866-1944) may himself be drifting out of memory. Forty four years editor of the Winnipeg Free Press, at a time when a newspaper editor in Winnipeg could be called "the greatest man in Canada," even after he declined both a knighthood and a senate appointment. “I think I would rather be editor of the Free Press.”
The prize named for him has a pretty impressive list of winners, many of them historians. And his grandson Christopher Dafoe was the first editor to publish me at The Beaver/Canada's History.
Image: The Dafoe Foundation
