Saskatoon author Guy Vanderhaeghe is one of the five Canadians awarded a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Fellowship for 2008, worth $225,000.

Vanderhaeghe, a professor of Creative Writing at the University of Saskatchewan and two-time winner of the Governor General's Award for fiction, was "delighted and terribly surprised" by the announcement, made Tuesday in Montreal.

The fellowships are awarded for a three-year period, and include $150,000, plus a $75,000 allowance for travel and research. Vanderhaeghe, who is working on the third book in loose trilogy about the Canadian West (The Englishman's Boy and The Last Crossing comprising the first two), will use the money to support himself and his research for the new book.

The Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation chooses individuals who "continue to question society's world views and teach the importance of responsible and engaged citizenship."

The recipients "have proven that they can imagine and promote new solutions to contemporary issues of importance to all Canadians, relying on the knowledge they draw from the conscientious attention they pay to the needs of our society."