Catherine Graham Shortlisted for 2021 Toronto Book Awards
Join us in congratulating Catherine Graham for being shortlisted for the 2021 Toronto Book Awards for her poetry collection Æther: An Out-of-Body Lyric.
Jurors narrowed down a record-breaking 93 submissions to just six books vying for the 2021 Toronto Book Award. The books that shortlisted alongside Catherine’s are:
Missing From the Village by Justin Ling
Crosshairs by Catherine Hernandez
Swimmers in Winter by Faye Guenther
On Property by Rinaldo Walcott
Speak, Silence by Kim Echlin
In Æther Catherine Graham has created a luminous homage to family, to cancer and to the strange windings of truth. Swimming through time and space, Graham introduces her mother, her father and herself and the cancers that pull them apart and bring them together. Memories mesh with visitations and multiple stories unfold of pain and loss, hidden tragedy, forgiveness and growth. With an otherworldly delicacy Graham stitches it all together to create a book-length lyric essay of lingering and profound beauty, a paean to the complexity of love and survival.
More about the Toronto Book Awards:
Established by Toronto City Council in 1974, the Toronto Book Awards honour books of literary merit that are inspired by the city.
There are no separate categories: novels, short story collections, books of poetry, books on history, politics and social issues, biographies, books about sports, children’s and young adult books, graphic novels and photographic collections are judged together.
