Last night at the Art Gallery of Ontario, Naomi Klein was named the 2014 winner of the Hilary Weston Writers' Trust Prize for Nonfiction, for her newest book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (Doubleday Canada).
The event was hosted by CBC's Shelagh Rogers and featured introductions and remarks from each of the five jurors — writers Charles Foran, Priscila Uppal and Merrily Weisbord, CBC News' Peter Mansbridge and filmmaker Deepa Mehta — and Hon. Hilary Weston herself. Mrs. Weston praised the power of non-fiction and referenced a recent piece in The New Yorker by Philip Gourevitch that questioned why the Nobel Prize for Literature hasn't been awarded to a non-fiction writer in more than fifty years.
Klein, who became a household name in 1999 with the publication of her iconoclastic No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies, is also an acclaimed journalist, working as a contributing editor for Harper’s, a reporter for Rolling Stone and a columnist for The Nation and the Guardian. As the winner, she took home $60,000 and a sculpture designed by crystal artist Mark Raynes Roberts.
A highlight of the evening was a brief presentation by Ashley Ash, the winner of the Writers' Trust non-fiction writing contest for Canadian high school students. Ash wrote about her experience in the foster care system, and her presentation, standing high above the crowd in the Weston Family Learning Centre of the AGO, had the confidence and polish of a much older and more experienced writer, marking her as a young author to watch.
The remaining finalists, Charles Montgomery, Susan Delacourt, Paula Todd and Kathleen Winter will each receive $5,000.
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