The Charles Taylor Prize for Literary Nonfiction, named for the late Canadian nonfiction writer, was awarded last night to Ian Brown for his memoir The Boy in the Moon: A Father's Search for His Disabled Son (Random House Canada). Brown, an award-winning journalist who contributes to the Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail, received forty thousand dollars to honor his book about life with his son, who suffers from Cardiofaciocutaneous syndrome, an extremely rare condition.
Three finalists, all authors of biographies, each received a prize of two thousand dollars. They are John English for Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968–2000 (Knopf Canada); Daniel Poliquin for René Lévesque (Penguin Canada); and Kenneth Whyte for The Uncrowned King: The Sensational Rise of William Randolph Hearst (Random House Canada). The judges were nonfiction writer Andrew Cohen, 2009 Charles Taylor Prize winner Tim Cook, and translator Sheila Fischman.
The annual prize is given to promote works of literary nonfiction by Canadian writers with a distinct style and command of language. According to the prize Web site, "Charles Taylor believed that a well-read and well-informed public contributes to a thriving democracy" and "that excellence in style is the basis for communication in thought." The next deadline for publishers to submit books is April 15.
In the video below, Brown talks about his winning book.