Short list for Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction revealed

TORONTO – Douglas Coupland is among the five finalists for this year’s $60,000 Hilary Weston Writers’ Trust Prize for Nonfiction.

The celebrated Vancouver-based author/artist is on the short list for “Kitten Clone: Inside Alcatel-Lucent” (Random House Canada).

Other contenders include University of Toronto professor emeritus Rosemary Sullivan for “Stalin’s Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva” (HarperCollins Canada).

Eliott Behar, a war crimes prosecutor from Toronto, made the cut for “Tell It to the World: International Justice and the Secret Campaign to Hide Mass Murder in Kosovo” (Dundurn Press).

Investigative journalist Dean Jobb of Wolfville, N.S., is a finalist for “Empire of Deception: From Chicago to Nova Scotia – The Incredible Story of a Master Swindler Who Seduced a City and Captivated a Nation” (Harper Avenue).

And Lynette Loeppky of Calgary is on the list with “Cease: A Memoir of Love, Loss and Desire” (Oolichan Books).

Jury members Stevie Cameron, Will Ferguson, and JJ Lee read 97 books submitted by 51 publishers to choose the short list.

The prize is billed as the richest annual literary award for a non-fiction book published in Canada.

The winner will be announced Oct. 6.