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Anna Porter has won the 2011 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing

Thursday, Feb 17, 2011 at 2:25pm

$34.95

Author and book publisher Anna Porter has won the 2011 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing for her book The Ghosts of Europe: Journeys Through Central Europe's Troubled Past and Uncertain Future. Anna Porter, founded Key Porter Books in 1982, in 1991, she was made an Officer of the Order of Canada for bring international attention to Canadian books. The Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for political writing carries a $25,000 purse.

The other finalists are,
Tim Cook, for The Madman and the Butcher: The Sensational Wars of Sam Hughes and General Arthur Currie.
Shelagh D. Grant, for Polar Imperative: A History of Arctic Sovereignty in North America.
Lawrence Martin, for Harperland: The Politics of Control.
Doug Saunders, for Arrival City: The Final Migration and our Next World.

Categories: Awards

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The Ghosts of Europe

- Anna Porter

Hardcover $34.95
Reader Reward Price: $31.46

One of the country's most distinguished writers and publishers returns to her roots to explore the consequences of democracy in the former Hapsburg lands In 1989 the Berlin Wall was dismantled. Communism gave way to democracy. Since that time the former borderlands of the long defunct Hapsburg Empire and the more recently dispersed Soviet Empire have been trying to invent their own versions of democracy and market-driven economics. But these experiments have led to a widening gap between rich and poor. The worldwide economic crisis has severely tested Central Europe's determination to live peaceably, and there are many disquieting signs of old hatreds and racial tensions returning. Author Anna Porter travels through the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia to speak with leading intellectuals, politicians, former dissidents and the champions of aggrieved memories. She interviews great figures of the revolution (Vaclav Havel, Adam Michnik, George Konrad) and its new custodians, among them Radek Sikorski and Ferenc Gyurcsany, and also examines the younger generation with little or no experience of Communism and no interest in its aftermath. She visits Poland's Institute of National Remembrance, Prague's Jewish Museum and Hungary's House of Terror, each an attempt to reckon with dark episodes of history. The Ghosts of Europe is an exploration of power, nationalism, racism and denial in nations with a tumultuous history and an uncertain future.