Munro, Coupland nominated for Writers' Trust prize

Alice Munro, who is internationally recognized as one of Canada's finest writers, and Douglas Coupland, who is one of the most popular, will compete for this year's Rogers Writers' Trust Fiction Prize.

Munro had asked that her latest short story collection, Too Much Happiness, be exempt for the Giller Prize, saying she wanted to give more opportunity to younger writers.

But Writers' Trust jurors have included the book among five chosen for a shortlist for Canada's best fiction.

R.M. Vaughan, a Toronto playwright who was one of three jurors who judged the books, said it was hard to overlook such genius and called Munro, 78, Canada's Henry James.

"There is something flawless about her writing. It's like being asked to describe a perfect porcelain vase," he told CBC News.

Vancouver-based Coupland, on the other hand, is frequently overlooked for major literary prizes, in part because of his popularity, Vaughan said.

Generation A, the book chosen by the jury, "is a great book," he said. "It's funny, insightful, it cracks right along."

"There were no other considerations for the jury, like 'is it his time,'" Vaughan said. "A good book is a good book."

The other contenders for the $25,000 prize, announced Wednesday in Toronto:

• Fences in Breathing, by Nicole Brossard of Montreal, translated into English by Susanne de Lotbinre-Harwood.
• The Golden Mean, by Annabel Lyon of Vancouver.
• Eva's Threepenny Theatre, by Andrew Steinmetz of Ottawa.

Vaughan said he had long been a fan of Brossard's poetic writing style and would love to see more English Canadians reading her work.

He hailed both Steinmetz and Lyon as fresh new voices in novel writing Steinmetz has previously published poetry and Lyon short stories.

The finalists will all read from their works Oct. 28 during the International Festival of Authors in Toronto.

The $25,000 non-fiction prize included three books of natural history and an examination of Baroque classical music.

The finalists are:

• Trauma Farm: A Rebel History of Rural Life,by Brian Brett of Salt Spring Island, B.C.
• The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World, by Wade Davis of Washington, D.C. and northern British Columbia.
• Grass, Sky, Song: Promise and Peril in the World of Grassland Birds, by Trevor Herriot of Regina.
• The Dog by the Cradle, the Serpent Beneath: Some Paradoxes of Human-Animal Relationships by Erika Ritter of Toronto.
• The Cello Suites: J.S. Bach, Pablo Casals, and the Search for a Baroque Masterpieces, by Eric Siblin of Montreal.

Juror Bruce Meyer said the non-fiction jury considered more than 89 books.

"It came down to the writing. Reading these books was really a study in non-fiction works. We thought that all the authors on the short list had a genuine passion for their subject matter," he said.

The jury, which included Anne Hart of St. John's and Tim Bowling of Edmonton, was unanimous in its selection, he said.

"Anne Hart is a librarian from Newfoundland, she was reading it as a librarian; I'm a professor of creative writing and literature so I was looking at is it really engaging intellectually and artistically; Tim is also a writer, a non-fiction writer from Alberta, and he's done a whole range of different books, and he was looking at it from the point of view of an artist," Meyer said.

"I think it's a tribute to the artistry of the authors who made the short list, that we arrived at the short list independently. We came up with the same five books."

Finalists for the $10,000 McClelland & Stewart Journey Prize for short fiction were also announced Wednesday.

The three short stories on the list are:

• The Last Great Works of Alvin Cale, by Daniel Griffin of Victoria, published in The Dalhousie Review.
• The Wisdom of Solomon, by Dave Margoshes of Regina, published in The Dalhousie Review.
• Floating like the Dead, by Yasuko Thanh of Victoria, published in Vancouver Review.

The winners will be announced Nov. 24 in Toronto.