Kobzar Literary Award 2006 finalists are announced
TORONTO - The board of directors of the Shevchenko Foundation has announced the short list for the Kobzar Literary Award.
Presented biennially, the $25,000 Kobzar Literary Award recognizes a Canadian writer who best presents a Ukrainian Canadian theme with literary merit through poetry, play, screenplay, musical, fiction, non-fiction or young people's literature.
The four finalists are (in alphabetical order by author):
The finalists were selected by an esteemed judging panel comprising: Myrna Kostash, journalist and non-fiction author, actor Mieko Ouchi, writer and director for theater, film and TV; Bill Richardson, writer and CBC broadcaster; and Antanas Sileika, journalist, fiction author and artistic director of the Humber College Writer's Program.
"We are very pleased with the exemplary and innovative approaches taken by the shortlisted authors in their treatment of Ukrainian Canadian themes," said Andriy Hladyshevsky, president of the Shevchenko Foundation.
The finalists will be honored and the inaugural Kobzar Literary Award 2006 winner will be announced at a dinner and awards ceremony on Thursday, March 2, at Toronto's Eglinton Grand.
The finalists
Lisa Grekul's "Kalyna's Song" (Coteau Books, ISBN: 1-55050-225-5) is a startling debut novel about coming of age in Alberta and Africa, a portrait of the artist as a young Ukrainian woman.
Growing up in the small northern Alberta community of St. Paul, Colleen Lutzak has both positives and negatives to deal with. She has an abundance of musical talent, excellent grades in school and a close extended family. On the other hand, she has a melodramatic mother, an older sister who doesn't always appreciate Colleen's talent, a nemesis named Carla Senko who manages to screw up every triumph Colleen closes in on, and a cousin named Kalyna.
Kalyna is Colleen's alter ego - they have the same name in different languages - and Kalyna is a mystery. She used to be normal, but something happened to her that no one will talk about. A grown woman who once had a family, Kalyna talks and acts like a child. She loves Colleen's music more than anything in the world, and brings out every protective instinct in her young cousin.
Colleen vigorously practices her youthful idealism as well as her talent; this mindset means life's lessons will be particularly hard on her. Her beloved music teacher, who shared and supported her pride in her Ukrainian heritage, suddenly dies. Colleen fails miserably in her first attempt at university in Edmonton, mainly because she resents and resists any reality that is other than what she expects. She is so determined to get away from all the "disappointments" of home that she registers to attend the United World College campus in Swaziland for one year.
Obviously, Swaziland is an utterly foreign experience. Her sense of identity and self-worth is challenged by her foreign surroundings, her homesickness, the suicide of her closest friend and the sudden death of Kalyna. This final tragedy forces Colleen to face adult decisions about the purpose to which she should devote her life and her talent.
Ms. Grekul lives in Kelowna and teaches Canadian literature in the Department of Critical Studies at the University of British Columbia - Okanagan. She grew up in St. Paul, Alberta, with a Ukrainian heritage, worked as a musician and attended school in Swaziland. She received a creative writing award from the University of Alberta and a doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Her novel "Kalyna's Song" (2003) was shortlisted for the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada Best First Book Award. She is the author of "Leaving Shadows: Literature in English by Canada's Ukrainians" (2005).
In Laura Langston's "Lesia's Dream" (HarperCollins Publishers Ltd., ISBN: 0006392830), Baba (grandmother) had made Lesia a promise: "Just remember the flower is not always open. But if your effort is true, your rewards will be sweet." Lesia treasures those words as she and her family leave Baba and flee for Canada. Disturbed by rumors of war, taxed and persecuted by their Austrian rulers, and worn down by years of hunger and poverty in their homeland, the Magus family clings to the hope that their 160 acres of uncleared prairie land will give them wealth, security and respect.
But even though there is no fighting in Canada, the first world war hunts the family down in their adopted country. Declared enemies of Canada, Lesia's father, brother and other immigrants are shipped off to an internment camp, leaving Lesia, her pregnant mother and her little sister to survive the winter alone in their sod hut on the prairie. And now the government official has told them that if they do not clear the obligatory 10 acres a year, they will lose their land, too.
Wrapped around a little-known episode in Canadian history, "Lesia's Dream" is a powerful story, gripping in its unvarnished portrait of a people whose spirit and strength of character could not be crushed. An accomplished children's writer, Ms. Langston blends a fast-paced adventure, a moving immigrant tale and a sensitive coming-of-age story that will resonate with its adolescent audience.
Ms. Langston is the author of several books for children and adults. "No Such Thing As Far Away" was a Children's Choice pick by the Canadian Children's Book Center; "The Fox's Kettle" was nominated for a Governor General's Award for Illustration; and "Pay Dirt!" her non-fiction book for junior/young adult readers, was nominated for the Red Cedar and Silver Birch awards. A former writer and broadcaster for the CBC, she is a regular contributor to Canadian Gardening magazine. Ms. Langston lives in Victoria, British Columbia.
Danny Schur's "Strike! - The Musical" deals with the period of May-June 1919, when the eyes of North America were fixed on the "Chicago of the North" - Winnipeg, Manitoba. Even The New York Times watched in disbelief as the third-largest city in Canada came to a total halt due to a general strike. A general strike had been quickly quashed in Seattle earlier that spring, but in Winnipeg the strike lasted six weeks and resulted in sympathetic strikes all across Canada. Revolution, it was thought, had been imported from Russia and taken root in Winnipeg.
Winnipeg's great general strike of 1919, so hot on the heels of the war, occurred in a climate of xenophobia, paranoia and overt discrimination directed toward the immigrants of Winnipeg's North End, of which Ukrainians were so much a part. And within this setting is the story of Mike Sokolowski, the Ukrainian immigrant everyman, who finds himself at the epicenter of Canada's most famous labor uprising. So much of the shame, and yet so much of the nobility, of the Ukrainian experience in Canada can be traced to this fateful six weeks in Winnipeg in 1919. This is the story of "Strike! - The Musical."
Dubbed Canada's "Andrew Lloyd Webber" by the CBC, Winnipeg's Mr. Schur was raised in Ethelbert, Manitoba, and demonstrated musical talent at an early age. A gifted pianist, he studied composition at the University of Manitoba before pursuing a career as an eight-time Juno-nominated composer/producer.
In 2000, Mr. Schur tread down his current career path of composer/producer of original musicals with his first musical, "The Bridge," commissioned to celebrate 100 years of Ukrainian settlement in Canada. Mr. Schur's third musical, "Strike!" premiered in Winnipeg in May 2005 to universally positive reviews. "Strike!" will open the 2006 season at Saskatoon's Persephone Theater in September.
Rick Chafe is a Winnipeg playwright and dramaturge with more than a dozen productions to his credit, including "The Secret Mask," produced at the Carol Shields Festival of New Works and "The Odyssey," produced by Shakespeare in the Ruins. He collaborated with Mr. Schur on the final production-ready version of the script to "Strike!"
Larry Warwaruk's "Andrei and the Snow Walker" (Coteau Books, ISBN: 1-55050-213-1) recounts the story of 12-year-old Andrei and his family who move in search of a better life from Ukraine to a Canadian homestead near Batoche, Saskatchewan, in the spring of 1900. Andrei's grandfather brings with them an ancient Scythian bowl given to him by an old hermit - a strange, glowing bowl which may have magical power.
Andrei has never worked so hard, helping to build a home, breaking land and learning to hunt with two Metis friends, Gabriel and Chi Pete. They tell him about Snow Walker, a man of unusual powers and wisdom - a man some say can change into a bear. Sometimes, in the woods, Andrei thinks he sees a figure moving through the trees.
Near Christmas, Andrei is caught in a swirling blizzard while trying to use the strange bowl's magic to help his family. When he falls through river ice, he sees not only that the magic bowl cannot save him, but also that he must let it go to have a chance of surviving. Suddenly, someone strong pulls him from the river. In a cabin in the woods, Andrei at last meets Snow Walker and learns that this land has its own wisdom and power.
Mr. Warwaruk is the author of the novels "The Ukrainian Wedding" and "Rope of Time" and the non-fiction book "Red Finns of the Coteau," published in 1984, as well as a number of short stories published in GRAIN, NeWest Review and elsewhere. He is the general editor of "Sundog Highway: Writing from Saskatchewan," Coteau's definitive anthology of Saskatchewan literature. Several of his works have won Saskatchewan Writers Guild literary awards.
He is also active in community theater - he founded the Snakebite Players in Beechy, Saskatchewan, and won several best director awards in Saskatchewan Community Theater festivals.
Born in Regina, Mr. Warwaruk grew up in southern Saskatchewan, took his academic degrees in Regina and at the University of Oregon, and was a teacher and principal in central Saskatchewan for many years. He lives with his family in Outlook, Saskatchewan.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, February 19, 2006, No. 8, Vol. LXXIV
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