2009 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize Finalists

   

John English
Just Watch Me: The Life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, 1968-2000
Published by Knopf Canada

Written with exclusive access to Trudeau’s private papers and letters, and based on interviews with numerous people associated with him both publicly and personally, Just Watch Me explores one of the most intriguing, remarkable political leaders of our times. English illuminates Trudeau’s strengths and weaknesses and shows that Canada would have developed as a different country without him.

John English is a professor of history at the University of Waterloo and a former Member of Parliament. The first volume of his life of Pierre Elliott Trudeau, Citizen of the World, won the Dafoe Book Prize and the University of British Columbia Medal for Canadian Biography, and was nominated for the 2006 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. He lives in Kitchener, Ontario.

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Terry Gould
Murder Without Borders: Dying For the Story in the World’s Most Dangerous Places
Published by Random House Canada

According to organizations such as the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Sans Frontièrs, more than 725 journalists have been killed worldwide since 1992. Gould travelled to the five countries in which it is most dangerous to be a journalist – Iraq, the Philippines, Russia, Colombia, and Bangladesh – in order to produce portraits of seven murdered journalists who carried on despite death threats. He found intriguing and complex reasons for such bravery.

Terry Gould is a Brooklyn-born investigative journalist who focuses on organized crime and social issues. He has won 47 awards and other honours for his reporting. Gould spent four years investigating the lives and work of the journalists he profiles in Murder Without Borders . He received the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression Tara Singh Hayer Press Freedom Award in 2009. He lives in Vancouver.

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Rudyard Griffiths
Who We Are: A Citizen’s Manifesto
Published by Douglas & McIntyre

Canadians have been persuaded that theirs is a postnational state – a country that downplays its history, makes few demands of its citizens, and places Canadian identity second to linguistics, ethnic, or regional loyalties. Griffiths argues that the “ Canada lite” model leads to a dead end: irrelevancy on the world stage and divisive strife at home. He reminds us of who we are, what we’ve accomplished, and why a loyalty beyond the local and personal is essential for Canada’s survival.

Rudyard Griffiths is co-founder of the Dominion Institute, a national non-profit organization dedicated to the promotion of Canadian history and civic literacy. He is also co-founder of the Grano Speakers Series and co-organizer of the semi-annual Munk Debates. He is a regular television commentator on national affairs and a columnist with the National Post. He lives in Toronto.

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James Maskalyk
Six Months in Sudan: A Young Doctor in a War-torn Village
Published by Doubleday Canada

In 2007, Maskalyk set out for Abyei, Sudan, as a doctor newly recruited by Médicines Sans Frontières. He spent his days in the contested border town treating malnourished children, coping with a measles epidemic, and watching for signs of war. He returned home six months later more affected by the experience than he had anticipated. With great hope and insight, Maskalyk illuminates a distant place and chronicles the toll of war on one community and one man, and the cost of that conflict to the world at large.

James Maskalyk practices emergency medicine at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. He is an assistant professor in the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine and a founding editor of the medical journal Open Medicine. His work has taken him to several countries throughout Asia, South America, and Africa. He has worked with Médecins sans Frontières twice, first as a journalist writing a blog about neglected diseases, and most recently as a physician in Sudan. Maskalyk lived in Toronto.

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Daniel Poliquin
René Lévesque
Published by Penguin Canada

René Lévesque was the most unlikely leader: straightforward, uninterested in personal wealth, unprepossessing. Yet his charisma affected even those who disliked his political aim to achieve independence for Quebec. As founder of the Parti Québécois, he held a close referendum that proved wrenching for Canadian unity and permanently alerted the country’s political landscape. Poliquin offers a unique portrait of Lévesque the man and politician, at once affectionate, critical, and incisive.

Daniel Poliquin’s books include A Secret Between Us, shortlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, and In the Name of the Father: An Essay on Quebec Nationalism , winner of the 2001 Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing. He worked as a simultaneous translator in the House of Commons and is a noted literary translator of many high-profile authors, such as Mordecai Richler, Jack Kerouac, and W.O. Mitchell. A member of the Order of Canada and a Chevalier de l’Ordre des arts et lettres of France, he lives in Montreal.

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