In announcing the 2016 The Kobzar Literary Award, jury members Karen Connelly, Tamas Dobozy and Shandi Mitchell said they were “inspired by the many literary works, histories, life stories, and documentaries that were entered for the prize and grateful for the insights they offered into a cultural and historical tradition that were not necessarily our own.”
The biennial prize went to Winnipeg author Maurice Mierau for Detachment: An Adoption Memoir, published by Freehand Books, based in Calgary. Mireau takes home $20,000 for his achievement, while Freehand is awarded an additional $5,000 for their support of excellent Ukrainian Canadian literature. The remaining finalists each received $1500.
Mierau's memoir tells the story of his and his wife’s adoption of two young brothers from Ukraine in 2005. The book also won the Alexander Kennedy Isbister Award for Non-Fiction and a 2015 Alberta Book Award.
The Kozbar Prize recognizes a Canadian writer who most effectively presents a Ukrainian Canadian theme through poetry, drama, fiction, non-fiction or young people’s literature and is funded by the Shevchenko Foundation.
The remaining finalists for the 2016 prize were:
Grant Buday for The Delusionist (Anvil Press; Vancouver, 2014)
Orest Martynowych for The Showman and the Ukrainian Cause: Folk Dance, Film and the Life of Vasile Avramenko (University of Manitoba Press; Winnipeg, 2014)
Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch for Underground Soldier (Scholastic Canada Ltd., Toronto, 2014)
Stacey Zembrzycki for According to Baba: A Collaborative Oral History of Sudbury’s Ukrainian Community (University of British Columbia Press; Vancouver, 2014)
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