Normally book prizes goes to writers, but the Wilson Prize, which comes from the L.R Wilson Institute for Canadian History at McMaster University in Hamilton, goes to a publisher, which must spend the money ($10,000) producing books about Canadian history.
The Wilson Prize will be presented at a Toronto launch for Speaking Up: A History of Language and Politics in Canada and Quebec by Marcel Martel and Martin Pâquet, translated by Patricia Dumas.
Jack Mitchell reviews Speaking Up in the current Literary Review of Canada, though not in the online edition. He calls it a "frankly nationalist history of minority language policy," and he's not a fan. "This book makes my blood run cold ... their assimilationist assumptions are, in short, equally preposterous and inhumane."
In other prize news, Candace Savage won the Weston Prize in nonfiction last night for her meditation on prairie history, Geography of Blood. And the 2012 Governor General's Awards come down today.
Congratulations all around.
