Amazon Canada First Novel Award finalists: John Elizabeth Stintzi and Francesca Ekwuyasi
Two Arsenal books have been named finalists for the 2021 Amazon Canada First Novel Award, presented by The Walrus: Vanishing Monuments by John Elizabeth Stintzi and Butter Honey Pig Bread by Francesca Ekwuyasi!
In Vanishing Monuments, Alani Baum, a non-binary photographer and teacher, returns home to their long-estranged mother who is now suffering from dementia. Kirkus Reviews called the novel "a surreal, poetic meditation on the struggle to feel at home with the past, family, and one's own body."
Butter Honey Pig Bread is an intergenerational novel about a novel about food, family, and forgiveness featuring three Nigerian women - a mother and her twin daughters. The New Yorker wrote: "The novel abounds with sex, death, and food - whose preparation offers these characters catharsis, knowledge, and sometimes simply pleasure."
Casey Plett's novel Little Fish won the Amazon Canada First Novel Award in 2019.
Congratulations to John Elizabeth, Francesca and all the finalists!
For more information on this year's finalists, click here.
