Bush Runner shortlisted for the 2020 RBC Taylor Prize!

We kept our fingers crossed and looks like luck is on our side! We’re ecstatic  to announce that Bush Runner: The Adventures of Pierre-Esprit Radisson has been shortlisted for the 2020 RBC Taylor Prize! 

I think Pierre would have seen the fun in all this, but he probably would have robbed the RBC Taylor Prize winner on the way out of the hall.

 

Author Mark Bourrie expresses his delight and gratitude in a statement: “Every writer hopes to have a day when Margaret Atwood stands on a stage and says their book is one of the five best non-fiction titles of the year. This is my day, and I am so glad that Dan Wells and Janice Zawerbny of Biblioasis were willing to give bad old Radisson a shot. I have lived with this pirate and cannibal for three years now, and I guess he’s going to be with me for a while longer. I think Pierre would have seen the fun in all this, but he probably would have robbed the RBC Taylor Prize winner on the way out of the hall. Every one of the twelve books on the long list was something I would have been proud to have my name on. Just making that list was an honor.”

The RBC Taylor Prize jury, which is comprised of Margaret Atwood, Coral Ann Howells, and Peter Theroux, have this to say about Bush Runner:  “Readers of Mark Bourrie’s Bush Runner might well wonder if Jonathan Swift at his edgiest has been at work. This over-the-top narrative connects Canadian fur traders with three European royal courts, mixes in Indigenous political intrigues and family alliances among the Five Nations and French settlers, and adds Jesuits, cannibalism, and the Great Fire of London. To top it off, there’s the impact of the beaver hat and the buffalo on the entire Western world! In Bourrie’s telling, the picaresque Pierre Radisson, a humane con artist of heroic stamina and fluid loyalties, was the fulcrum of four centuries of Canadian centrality in the forging of modern Western civilizations. Who knew?”

We are extremely pleased that Mark’s book has resonated so well with both audiences and critics. We’d also like to thank all of you for championing the book and keeping it on the best seller lists for so long!

We won’t be uncrossing our fingers just yet: the winner of the RBC Taylor Prize will be announced on March 2, 2020.