The Student by Cary Fagan has been shortlisted for the City of Toronto Book Award, which honours authors of books of literary or artistic merit that are evocative of Toronto. The annual awards offer $15,000 in prize money: finalists receive $1,000 and the winning author is awarded $10,000.
The 2019 Toronto Book Awards will be handed out in October at the Bram and Bluma Appel Salon in the Toronto Reference Library. Toronto Book Awards produces a full day of programming at Word on the Street (Harbourfront Centre) in September, in addition to a special Toronto Public Library reading, yet to be announced.
The Student is a novella that offers two snapshots of Toronto in the 1950s and the 2000s—periods that were pivotal in steering the city’s cultural development. But these times were also very exclusionary. Cary Fagan’s novel celebrates the people who challenged the obstacles: the women who broke their way into the higher levels of academia; the activists who pushed for the legalization of same-sex marriage. The Student is a love letter to the people—like Fagan’s protagonist Miriam Moscowitz—who, in trying to overcome the constraints of their times, shaped the city.
Read more about the award here: www.toronto.ca/city-government/awards-tributes/awards/toronto-book-awards/
Read more about the book here: alllitup.ca/Blog/2019/Where-in-Canada-A-history-of-Toronto-s-cultural-scene