Esi Edugyan, Patrick deWitt to vie for Writers' Trust Award

Canadian writers Esi Edugyan and Patrick deWitt have earned nominations for the Writers’ Trust of Canada fiction prize.

The pair, unknown writers just two months ago, are now in the running for three top fiction prizes, including the Giller Prize and the Man Booker Prize.

Edugyan of Victoria is nominated for her second novel, Half Blood Blues, while deWitt, a native of Vancouver Island now living in Portland, Ore., made the list for The Sisters Brothers.

Nominees for the $25,000 Writers’ Trust fiction award and the $10,000 Journey Prize were announced in Toronto on Wednesday.

Other nominees for the Writers' Trust fiction prize:

- The Meagre Tarmac by Clark Blaise.

- The Beggar’s Garden by Michael Christie.

- The Quiet Twin by Dan Vyleta.

The Journey Prize is given annually to a Canadian short story. The nominees are:

- The Fur Trader’s Daughter by Seyward Goodhand.

- Petitions to Saint Chronic by Miranda Hill.

- First-Calf Heifer by Ross Klatte.

Only Blaise, a writer associated with both Toronto and Montreal who now lives in San Francisco, is a well-known name among the Writers' Trust fiction nominees. .

Little-known writers

"Four out five names on this list, they were unrecognizable writers in Canadian literature. I don’t know why that is so. If it’s a coincidence or what,” said Rabindranath Maharaj, who served on the jury with Emma Donoghue and Margaret Sweatman.

Maharaj said he was struck by the confidence and fresh outlook among the many new writers he encountered while trying to choose a short list.

“I believe that what some of these new writers are doing, is that they are innovative without drawing attention to their innovation. They are accessible — they aren't saying 'look at how smart I am',” he said.

The jury read 120 books and selected a long list of 17, including Half Blood Blues and The Sisters Brothers long before they turned up on the Man Booker nomination list.

Half Blood Blues is the story of a black jazz musician caught up the Nazi occupation in 1940s Paris. The Sisters Brothers is about two cowboy assassins tasked with tracking down a gold prospector.

Vyleta, a Czech-born Canadian, is nominated for his second novel with The Quiet Twin, a mystery thriller set in Vienna at the start of the Second World War.

Two short story collections

Christie, a former professional skateboarder who also has worked with the homeless, looks to Vancouver’s notorious Downtown Eastside for inspiration in his collection of short stories, The Beggar’s Garden.

Blaise’s The Meagre Tarmac is also a collection of linked short stories. Maharaj acknowledged that short stories are often the “poor cousin” in literary competitions.

“Most short story collections tend to be uneven – some that are good and some stories that aren’t and then you don’t know whether to judge on the basis of the stronger stories or the basis of the weaker stories,” he said. “That is the disadvantage of most short story collections, except for these ones here – all of the short stories were great.”

The winners will be named Nov. 1 at the Writers’ Trust Awards gala. Finalists for the fiction award each receive $2,500, while Journey Prize finalists are awarded $1,000 each.