King Wins Trillium
Book Award

May 19, 2004

Prof. Thomas King, English and Theatre Studies, has won Ontario's premier prize for literary excellence, the Trillium Book Award.

King's book The Truth About Stories, published from his 2003 Canada Massey Lectures, beat out five other books nominated for the prestigious prize in the English-language category. King receives a $20,000 prize; his publisher, House of Anansi Press, gets $2,500.

King's Massey Lectures, titled “The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative,” were presented last fall over nine days in five provinces. They were recorded and broadcast on the CBC Radio program Ideas.

In the lectures and book, King looks at the breadth and depth of native experience and imagination and North America's relationship with its Aboriginal Peoples. He uses personal anecdotes, autobiographical experiences and academic research to explore topics such as literature, history, religion, politics, popular culture and social protest.

King is also the author of four best-selling novels and numerous television scripts and has been shortlisted for the Governor General's Award and Commonwealth Writers Prize.

Other Trillium finalists in the English-book category were: Di Brandt, Now You Care; Pier Giorgio Di Cicco, The Dark Time of Angels; Barbara Gowdy, The Romantic; Djanet Sears, Adventures of a Black Girl in Search of God; and Giller Prize-winner M.G. Vassanji, The In-Between World of Vikram Lall.

Former U of G languages and literatures professor François Paré, a faculty member at Guelph from 1978 to 2003 and now head of French studies at the University of Waterloo, tied for first place in the French-language category for his book La distance habitée.

The Trillium Book Awards were established by the provincial government in 1987 to recognize excellence and increase public awareness of the quality and diversity of Ontario writers and writing. Independent industry peer juries selected this year's winners from more than 300 submissions. Previous Trillium winners include Margaret Atwood, Michael Ondaatje and Jane Urquhart.