Writer and scholar Gwen Benaway says winning the Governor General's Literary Award for poetry can feel like a 'double-edged sword.'On the day she is announced as the winner of the Governor-General’s Literary Award for Poetry, Gwen Benaway won’t be celebrating.
The need for the protest is, Benaway says when reached by phone, an example of why her response to her GG win was not happiness, but fear. “As a trans woman in public life, every day I get attacked – on social media, in the street everywhere,” she says, “So this kind of visibility is really frightening to me because I know that hate usually follows it.
She is accepting the award, however. “Other indigenous trans women told me that it matters to them that someone like them was winning an award,” she says. “But also, economically, it means that I won’t be homeless for another eight months, you know? That’s the simple reason for accepting it.” The win comes with a cheque for $25,000.
Governor General’s Literary Awards are presented in 14 categories, seven each in English and French. The French-language award for poetry went to Anne-Marie Desmeules forFive Wives , a novel about a small group of Christian missionaries to Ecuador in the 1950s and their attempt to convert a people who had never had contact with the outside world. Thomas triumphed over fellow nominees Michael Crummey, Cary Fagan, Marianne Micros, and K.D. Miller. Crummey’s novel,, is also on the shortlist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and Scotibank Giller Prize, for which winners will be announced November 5 and 18 respectively.
GlobeArts Men are winning everything and breaking records these days.
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GlobeArts Anything a woman can do, men can do better.
GlobeArts Used to be called 'poets'.
GlobeArts Like Russia being able to nuke us frightening or axe wielding murderer frightening?
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