NIKIFORUK - Wins Major Literary Prize!

[Oscar]

Tyee contributor Andrew Nikiforuk wins major literary prize

[ http://thetyee.ca/Blogs/TheHook/2013/11 ... uk-Prize/# ]

By Tyee Staff Published November 21, 2013 10:10 am

Tyee contributing editor Andrew Nikiforuk has won the prestigious Matt Cohen Award from the Writer's Trust of Canada, a $20,000 prize "in celebration of a writing life" -- in this case honouring the Calgarian's 20 years of environmental reporting and writing.

The award is unusual in that it can go to a fiction writer or poet as well as a non-fiction writer like Nikiforuk, who in just the past three years has published three books, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent (2010), Empire of the Beetle: How Human Folly and a Tiny Bug Are Killing North America's Great Forests (2011) and most recently, The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude, as well as many dozens of articles, most of them appearing on The Tyee.

"This just affirms what we already know here at The Tyee, that Andrew Nikiforuk is a national treasure. That we can afford his great reporting skills and insights an outlet and an audience is a privilege," said Tyee editor David Beers. "Andrew, all your admiring colleagues at The Tyee congratulate you!"

Nikiforuk's writings for The Tyee tend to focus on energy issues but have ranged wider. Yesterday he published an essay ruminating on how Rob Ford and Stephen Harper tap into themes of addiction and denial in the Canadian political culture. All his stories for The Tyee can be found here.

[Oscar]

Calgary’s Andrew Nikiforuk humbled by $20,000 Writer’s Trust award

[ http://www.calgaryherald.com/Calgary+An ... story.html ]

By Eric Volmers, Calgary Herald November 20, 2013

Calgary writer Andrew Nikiforuk received the prestigious $20,000 Matt Cohen Award on Wednesday evening in Toronto from the Writer’s Trust of Canada, recognizing the journalist’s 20 years of environmental writing.

Nikiforuk, who has written books such as the Governor General Award-winning Saboteurs: Wiebo Ludwig’s War against Big Oil and Empire of the Beetle: How Human Folly and a Tiny Bug Are Killing North America’s Great Forests, said he was “totally surprised and totally humbled” by the prize, which is “in celebration of a writing life.” He received the award in a ceremony in Toronto’s Glenn Gould Studio.

“It makes me worry about my longevity,” joked Nikiforuk earlier this week. “Am I going to be hit by a car next week? You’re always dubious about this kind of award in the sense that it’s, ‘Oh my God, do I have no time left?’”

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Nikiforuk’s last book was The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude, which was based on the provocative premise that compared North American energy users to slave owners.

His 2010 book Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent made the argument that Canada has become a rogue “petro state” under Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

“There’s an Israeli journalist by the name of Amira Hass and when she was asked a number of years ago what the job of a writer or journalist was, she said, ‘It was to monitor the centres of power,’” Nikiforuk says. “It’s my hope that my best work has done that. Whether I was looking at the educational establishment today or looking at the energy status quo in the country.”

After the publication of The Energy of Slaves, Nikiforuk worked a retail job in Bridgeland, saying he needed “a break from the turbulent world of publishing.”

The good news is that Nikiforuk is back in that world, although at this time is not giving many details about what he is working on.

“I can’t say at the moment, but I have a number of projects on the go,” he said.

evolmers@calgaryherald.com