The Man Booker International Prize 2019 winners

Last night at a ceremony in London, the winners of the 2019 Man Booker International Prize were announced.

Congratulations to author Jokha Alharthi and translator Marilyn Booth, who won for the book Celestial Bodies, and who will share equally the £50,000 (approximately $85,000 Canadian) prize.

Celestial Bodies tells the story of three sisters in the Oman village of al-Awafi: Mayya, who marries Abdallah after a heartbreak; Asma, who marries from a sense of duty; and Khawla, who rejects all offers while waiting for her beloved, who has emigrated to Canada. These three women and their families witness Oman evolve from a traditional, slave-owning society slowly redefining itself after the colonial era, to the crossroads of its complex present.

Please note that at the time of this announcement, there is no North American edition of Celestial Bodies available for us to order. However, with the book receiving such a pretigious honour we expect an edition will be available to us soon, so please check with your nearest McNally Robinson in coming weeks.

The Winnipeg General Strike Centennial Anniversary

The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 was one of the most famous and influential strikes in Canadian history, and became the platform for future labour reforms. Almost 30,000 workers left their jobs and even essential public employees such as firefighters and police went on strike. The RCMP were called in and the strike came to a violent end on what is referred to as "Bloody Saturday." This year marks the 100th anniversary of the strike, and there are plenty of new books on the subject to explore.

Winnipeg 1919 edited by Norman Penner. Following the strike, union leaders published an account of the events leading up to and during the strike. This book offers the full document in its original format along with an introduction to the 1974 edition by labour historian and activist Norman Penner. This volume also includes a new introduction by historian Christo Aivalis discussing how the lessons learned in 1919 remain relevant today, and key documentary photographs of strike events, including a minute-by-minute sequence showing the final RCMP fatal assault on the strikers.

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Manitoba Book Awards 2019 winners

At an awards gala held this past weekend at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the 2019 Manitoba Book Awards were proudly presented to this year's recipients. The eleven separate awards recognize excellence in Manitoba writing, book design, and publishing for books published within the past year. This year's winners include:

• McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award — More Abandoned Manitoba: Rivers, Rails and Ruins by Gordon Goldsborough, published by Great Plains Publications
• McNally Robinson Book for Young People Award: Older Category — Monsters by David A. Robertson, published by HighWater Press, an imprint of Portage & Main Press
• Manitoba Indigenous Writer of the Year Award — Tasha Spillett
• Le Prix littéraire Rue-Deschambault — L’enfant rouge par Bertrand Nayet, publié par Les Éditions du Blé
• Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction — Small Predators by Jennifer Ilse Black, published by ARP Books
• Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction —Structures of Indifference: An Indigenous Life and Death in a Canadian City by Mary Jane Logan McCallum and Adele Perry, published by University of Manitoba Press
• Mary Scorer Award for Best Book by a Manitoba Publisher — Stolen City: Racial Capitalism and the Making of Winnipeg by Owen Toews, cover and interior design by Urbanink, published by ARP Books
• Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book by a Manitoba Author — declared a tie and presented to both Surviving the City written by Tasha Spillett, illustrated by Natasha Donovan, published by HighWater Press, an imprint of Portage & Main Press; and Clean Sweep by Michael J. Clark, published by ECW Press
• Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award — Stolen City: Racial Capitalism and the Making of Winnipeg by Owen Toews, published by ARP Books
• Chris Johnson Award for Best Play by a Manitoba Playwright — The Flats by Ginny Collins, produced by Prairie Theatre Exchange and Cercle Molière
• Manuela Dias Design and Illustration Awards, I. Book Design — Small Predators by Jennifer Ilse Black, cover artwork and design by Kenneth Lavallee, interior design by Relish New Brand Experience, published by ARP Books
• Manuela Dias Design and Illustration Awards, II. General Illustration — IKWE: Honouring Women, Life Givers, and Water Protectors written and illustrated by Jackie Traverse, image editing/cover design by Melody Morrissette, published by Roseway Publishing, an imprint of Fernwood Publishing
• Manuela Dias Design and Illustration Awards, III. Graphic Novel — Surviving the City written by Tasha Spillett, illustrated by Natasha Donovan, design by Relish New Brand Experience, cover art by Natasha Donovan, lettering by Donovan Yaciuk, published by HighWater Press, an imprint of Portage & Main Press

Congratulations to all of the winners and nominees! For a full list of the nominees, see this post, or visit the Manitoba Book Awards website for more details.

What To Read: May & June 2019

God by Reza Aslan. Softcover. $24.00. RRC Price $21.60. Aslan narrates the history of religion as the attempt to understand our innate desire to humanize God. He writes that most of us think of God as a divine version of ourselves, but this projection is not without consequences. We bestow upon God not just all that is good in human nature but all that is bad in it as well, and these qualities inform our religions, cultures, and governments. More than just a history of our understanding of God, this book is an attempt to get to the root of this humanizing impulse in order to develop a more universal spirituality. (Random House. April)

On Grand Strategy by John Lewis Gaddis. Softcover. $24.00. RRC Price $21.60. For almost two decades, Yale students have competed for admission each year to the "Studies in Grand Strategy" seminar taught by John Lewis Gaddis. Its purpose has been to prepare future leaders for responsibilities they will face, through lessons drawn from history and the classics. Now Gaddis has distilled that teaching into a succinct, sharp and potentially transformational book, surveying statecraft from the ancient Greeks to Franklin D. Roosevelt and beyond. An unforgettable guide to the art of leadership, On Grand Strategy is, in every way, its own master class. (Penguin. April)

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